Gregorian Nominee for Best Album 2007

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

 Drenched in sweat and riding a danceable wave of euphoria, I got an idea of the significance of LCD Soundsystem at the end of their live set that I hadn't even planned on seeing.

Coaxed by my brother to check them out, I had been expecting a Basement Jaxx/Justice/Daft Punk electronic dance show. While clearly it was that - it was also much more.

The effortless dance grooves were so catchy, layered and bouncy that only someone in a coma could not feel the urgent energy generated. But it wasn't until the last song that I realized this was an outfit (well, largely the product of New York dance punk producer James Murphy) that was offering more than just splashy electronic dance thrills.

Just at the point where the crowd had been whipped up into a state of mass excitement, Murphy and company switched gears and ended the show with the shockingly undanceable but potent ballad "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

Evocative of the crooning tributes to the Big Apple from Sinatra and Liza Minelli (minus the big band horn section backing), the song couldn't be more different than the electronic vibes of the show that came before it. The effect on the crowd's mood was noticeable but Murphy - who looks more like a chubby recluse than an electronic guru - was immersed in this unorthodox change of mood.

Those willing to go with the transition were richly rewarded with a passionate performance of both tribute and lament, love and depair, and ultimately disturbed uncertainty.

While undoubtably about the state of post 9/11 New York City - Murphy's home where he clearly feels strongly attached - the song, if one so chooses to expand their interpretation, feels broader and can resonate in the house of every dismayed and uncertain American keeping up with the absurd play of current affairs over the course of this decade.

It's that element of contextual awareness that Murphy brings to bear in ample doses on LCD Soundsystem's breakout album Sound of Silver. If Murphy is as adept at writing a modernized showtune like "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down," as he is the electronic dance music that makes up the rest of the album, he is on course to be a cultural force to be rekoned with.

Listening to Sound of Silver can quickly  wrap you up into the dynamic and elaborate electronic layering and dance beats that are both intense and loaded with physicality. The most immediate and obvious song showcasing this is the opening track "Get Innocuous."

Starting out with a basic dance beat, layer upon layer of sound is added to the point where one's rear end is nearly forced to start shaking, regardless of the setting the listener finds themselves in.

As the song builds with electronic effects and synthesizers, vocals start up a few minutes in. A chorus of robotic-sounding male voices make a variety of passionless delivered statements, including "When once you have  beleived it, now you see it's sucking you in. To string you along with the pretense and pave the way for the coming release."

Curiously and wonderfully, the song  builds to a refrain from a  far less monotonous sounding female vocalist who repeatedly and unexpectedly tells the grooving listener that, "you can normalize, don't it make you feel alive?" She ends her part in the song by exhorting the audience to: "Get innocuous!"

Hmmm...get innocuous? Not exactly the mantra of someone celebrating their individuality. If you thought about it at all, you might stop dancing.

This is the joy of Murphy's artistic sensibilities - he creates a viscerally joyous dance album and laces it with wry, sometimes snarky, sometimes droll, yet vague commentary where his intentions are not exactly certain or, errr....innocuous.

What does seem certain is that Murphy is not entirely at ease with himself or his surroundings. One obvious example is the brooding tune "Someone Great." Still somehow irresistibly dancable, the track carries a heavy sound in the keyboards with an electronic vibration that seems to throb like a sublime headache, if such a thing existed. Murphy's vocals kick in and every syllable is matched with a stroke on a glockenspiel.

The specifics of what's going on are unclear, but the song is clearly about loss. About half way through Murphy repeats "it keeps coming, it keeps coming, it keeps coming" over and over again until finally he lets go and sings "until the day it stops."

At the end of the song which has painted a picture of those moments in time when a catastrophic event has occurred, he sings "we're safe for the moment." And by the end you feel as though you've just gone through the five full stages of grief.

While still trying to catch your breath, LCD Soundsystem moves to the frenetic keyboard progression that is the centerpiece rhythm of the wollop that is "All My Friends." While, again, richly catchy and danceable, "All My Friends" is anything but mindless joy.

Trying to realize where we fit in in a culture where people my age were shown contradictory ways of growing up, or not growing up, Murphy grasps the unsatisfactory conclusions of being nearly middle aged and alone and trying to live the free lifestyle that seemed so tangible and normal as we grew up.

As Murphy so painfully observes, we come apart at the seams as adults who want more than anything to live the youthful and social life promised in the tenets of modern music. But the dreary responsibilities of adulthood and the mechanistic processes by which we are "adultified" can be numbing for thoses who always wanted to just hang out with our friends.

"You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan and the next five years trying to be with your friends again," he sings. The bottom line - growing older sucks. "I wouldn't trade one stupid decision for another five years of life," he laments to seal the point.


There is a world-weary quality throughout the album, that makes it stand apart from bands in the general electronic dance world of music. Murphy also uses more natural instrumentation - guitars, bass, organs, etc to buttress against an album that could be far too slick for its purposes.

He also provides two songs that can best be described as "post-patriotic" anthems. The first already-discussed tune is the album closer "New York I Love You But Your Bringing Me Down" and the second is "North American Scum." A sarcastic taunt of a song responding to European dominance of the electronic music scene, Murphy embraces the qualities that make US counter culturalism different than overseas - the anti-elitism that underlies the best of American social protest.

That you can actually be reminded of aspects of the US that there is to love and yet still feel that sense of persistent social decay and growing alienation is a feat that can not be underestimated. But that Murphy can do it while keeping you moving and feeling alive is a testament of true artistic accomplishment.