SOUND OF SILVER
LCD Soundsystem
2007

I first found LCD Soundsystem in early 2011, when I bought This Is Happening on iTunes. I’m perpetually haunted by this decision, as “All I Want” is the first song that plays every time I plug my phone into my car. If I’d started with Sound of Silver, I’d surely instead be haunted by “All My Friends,” a song that anchored me during some of my deepest collegiate depression. The break-up of LCD Soundsystem, documented in the not-very-good-documentary-but-there’s-a-much-better-concert-film-in-the-special-features Shut Up And Play The Hits, was the first time a band I’d found as an adult and imagined a much larger future for, was supposed to be ending. Of course, they haven’t actually ended, their new music is still pretty good, and James Murphy’s constant posturing has aged into making him deeply uncool. He’s come full circle, I guess.

LCD Soundsystem’s albums were laser targeted at my “Talking Heads are underrated” resentments and my burgeoning affection for the epic build of Bruce Springsteen and Sonic Youth’s “Teen Age Riot”. “All My Friends” and “Dancing in the Dark” make so much sense together Hot Chip mashed them up. It’s soaring arena rock made with new wave synths and anchored by Murphy’s sing-talk baritone.

Sound of Silver used to sound like the future to me. It’s such a fascinating blend of indie rock trends, electronic dance pop, and irony-drenched lyrics. “Time To Get Away” and “North American Scum” are so fun to shout along to precisely because the idea of singing them has already been tossed aside. It’s cynical and playful at the same time. I didn’t understand that this was already a dead end, that the last great rock bands seeming to revel in disposability and excess signaled death rather than bravado. The danciest songs on this album play like worn-out versions of late-70s Eno collaborations with Byrne and Bowie, revived by the necromancy of `funk guitar, incredible polyrhythms, and synth stings. They’re fun, they’re funny, they’re acrid.

What makes the album not curdle over is the more sincere grief of the less ironic music. “Someone Great” and “All My Friends” are really heartfelt power pop. The former is more explicitly the death of Murphy’s longtime therapist, the literal grief of losing a loved one. The latter is more the grief of time, exploring how relationships and missed opportunities change faster than it feels possible. These have a more melodic sound and less repetitive lyrics to them, and it’s more obvious the way these songs wear their sincerity. Similarly, the closing ballad, “New York, I Love You” is undeniably a downer-ballad, still removed with some humor but also very sincerely celebrating Murphy’s home city. Less lyrically emotional is “Sound of Silver,” but its sonic journey is maybe the most adventurous and epic build on the album, situating its “teenagedom” very personally in Murphy’s own adolescence.

The end of the party is how LCD Soundsystem fancied itself at the time. The myth is that with the death of the Meet Me In The Bathroom New York rock scene, we gave in to modern pressures and got old. We’d reached the end of the line, and there was nothing left to say in the rock format. Obviously, anyone still listening to modern rock music can dispute that with their own assortment of twenty bands who are doing something exciting and interesting and personal, or who are using Pixies and Springsteen and new wave to say new things. That feeling that you’re getting old and the world isn’t following your vision anymore is attractive to people of every generation. It’s fun to listen to LCD Soundsystem sell the fantasy of being The Last Good Band, because boy, they sell the hell out of it.

KEY TRACKS: “Time To Get Away”, “Someone Great”, “All My Friends,” “Sound of Silver”
CATALOG CHOICE: This Is Happening
NEXT STOP: Challengers Original Score, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
AFTER THAT: Mosquito, Yeah Yeah Yeahs