Send "LCD Soundsystem " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 King of the Indie Dance Floor completes a remarkable trilogy of albums with both style and smarts.In seeming defiance of the hype that can so easily crush the potential and ambition dozens of today’s most amped up bands exude, LCD Soundsystem head honcho James Murphy has brazenly absorbed the mounting anticipation for his project’s oncoming album with what appears to be the reassuring calm of a seasoned pro. As expectations built skyward for This Is Happening, it would have been easy to feel let down—no matter how high these nine singular tracks climbed—with Murphy’s third opus, given how much has been piled onto it. What’s striking about what’s been produced is how flippantly Murphy brushes off that tension, crafting an album as spellbinding and addictive as anything he’s released in the past while taking ardent liberties with the approach he uses with his familiar-by-now manic dance-punk hysteria. Even the title itself seems to be shrugging off all of the baggage with the winking nonchalance of a prankster. Word has it that Murphy will retire the LCD Soundsystem moniker following his latest release, and if that has any ring of truth to it, the man couldn’t have chosen a more apt bookend to this portion of his impressive career. Serving up a comprehensively postmodern survey of pop culture with wit, panache and an enviable dose of hooks, This Is Happening manages to avoid predictability by consistently keeping one step ahead of the listener yet sidestepping clever-clever irony with a genuine warmth that’s naturally layered within the giggling heathen at the heart of the record. Each curve ball that hides around the corner sneaks on as welcoming as a cool breeze on a blazing summer’s day, eliciting as many geeked out thrills as it affords mass critical adoration. What Murphy does best is balance these tendencies so that none of his whim-chasing expulsions ever feel crass or smug, and by finding the spirited inspiration in the nondescript, the self-effacement in our projected criticisms, and the fun in the commonplace, he’s able to keep us entertained in the process. Skipping from the smart ass demeanor of “You Wanted a Hit”—its snarky, biting “you wanted a hit? / well maybe we don’t do hits” a snickering sucker-punch to the record industry—to the bittersweet, sad-eyed empathy of “All I Want”—a kissing cousin to Sound of Silver‘s Single of the Decade-worthy “All My Friends”—Murphy’s versatility is only out-matched by his ability to tie it all seamlessly into one with such a knowing, strong handed sense of craft. While lesser musicians would crumble underneath the seeming pretense of hitting on so many facets of life in such a stuttering, audacious fashion, the giddiness exhibited on these tracks is as infectious as it is admirably stitched together. In fact, that may be the resounding strength of This Is Happening: by finding a way to be life-affirming while keeping our hips shaking, without casting off life’s woes and joys as either paltry or boring, LCD Soundsystem has succeeded at capturing both our minds and our bodies without sacrificing its head-nodding spirit or its heavy-hearted sense of purpose along the way....full text |
| Culturebully |
| In 2007 James Murphy followed up his widely praised 2005 debut and the 2006 maxi-track 45:33 with Sound of Silver. Utterly demolishing expectation—which isn’t to say that anticipation for the record hadn’t gathered considerable momentum—the album was immediately met with a glowing response; many eventually acknowledging it as being one of the best of the decade. So how does Murphy follow up his distinguished series of LCD Soundsystem releases? By introducing a new album with a single that wades in tight crunch-funk verses about drunk girls (and boys) before making the personal plea “Just ’cause I’m shallow doesn’t mean that I’m heartless/Just ’cause I’m heartless doesn’t mean that I’m mean.” But even though “Drunk Girls” is not the most obvious attempt at picking up where Silver left off, the single alludes to the general direction that This Is Happening takes: One that’s strikingly familiar despite still reflecting a sense of immediacy. It’s like 2007 all over again. “Dance Yrself Clean” opens the record with a mellow, thuddish synth that teeters between a basic key line and Murphy’s creamy vocals before exploding into a boisterous electronic break. Murphy later jumps in with his familiar howl that blares intermittently until the nine minute track fades into the record’s aforementioned teaser, “Drunk Girls.” “One Touch” follows with a series of erratic industrial squeals which twist into a spiraling electronic bubble before developing a fluttering loop that looms below Murphy’s weighty vocals. The first significant shift in the record comes with “All I Want.” The near-seven minute song finds its stride early on with Murphy quietly crooning over a bass, guitar, and drums. Keys are eventually added to the mix, but the collection of sounds becomes a mounting force which overpowers Murphy’s vocals. This wouldn’t seem like such an issue had Sound of Silver not been so lyrically focused, but with the exception of “Drunk Girls” the album has relied greatly on its musical merit to this point. But just as the ear begins to blend each unique component into one churning sound, “I Can Change” chimes in and once again illuminates with Murphy’s voice, something that translates as oddly refreshing given the development of the record. Or maybe that’s the point: To bashfully reduce the attention which might have been given to his lyrics. As if that were the case, Murphy pokes fun at himself in the song, “Love is an open book to a verse of your bad poetry, and this is coming from me.” After being so focused on creating a musically intense album, “I Can Change” is a charming reminder of Murphy’s genuine approach at driving focus to the strongest aspect of each individual song: In this case his lyrics fit the bill, in others they don’t....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| While discussing the burden of influence in 2005, James Murphy told us, "The Strokes are swimming up some incredibly serious stuff: Velvet Underground. Television. It's kinda soul-crushing in a way to listen to 'Perfect Day' and say, 'I'm gonna go write a song like that,' and it'll be fucking horrible by comparison." At that point, the Strokes had yet to squander their leather-clad, LES cool, and LCD Soundsystem were still, mostly, a Williamsburg blip. But over the past five years, things changed. Drastically. In 2010, early aughts trendsetters like Interpol and the Strokes are NYC relics, outpaced by a gang of stridently preppy, chart-topping Columbia grads and a 40-year-old Brian Eno obsessive. On This Is Happening, Murphy once again shows off his encyclopedic knowledge of all things post-punk and zip-tight. But he's also swimming up some serious stuff himself, including Eno and David Bowie's sacrosanct Berlin trilogy. And against his own prediction, it's far from horrible; it's actually pretty perfect. "I spent my whole life wanting to be cool... but I've come to realize that coolness doesn't exist the way I once assumed," said Murphy in a recent Guardian feature. This realization probably has something to do with his rising cultural cache. After all, Murphy has done what all other music fiends only dream about-- he's flipped the system and become the embodiment of coolness. This is a phenomenal coup. And he's quick to rationalize his current status to the New Yorker: "I understand that if someone's going to make me his idea of cool I can't control that." It's somewhat ironic, then, that Murphy's reign as New York's ambassador of post-hip-everything finds him nearly losing his cool on This Is Happening. His early singles and first album were him joking to himself, Sound of Silver was a collective rush of us vs. them, and now it's about him and her. This is also by far the bloodiest LCD Soundsystem album-- a series of bare, lacerating manifestos about distance between people, set to the fizzing art/dance-rock greatest hits inside Murphy's skull. "Love is a murderer," he sings on "I Can Change". He's not kidding. On the hypnotic dirge "Somebody's Calling Me", the vocal chameleon tries on narcotic whispers while taking Iggy Pop's sleazy, empty-eyed "Nightclubbing" out of the club and into the bedroom. And though "All I Want" borrows that sliding Bowie guitar and kraut-y beat, Murphy makes it singe with his own tour-born regret, loss, and fatigue: "You learn in your bed you've been gone for too long/ So you put in the time, but it's too late to make it strong." Even considering his bold-name touchstones for This Is Happening, it would be shortsighted to cry rip-off; Murphy is remaking essential 70s art-rock in his own hyper-modern, self-aware image....full text |
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