Everybody Keeps On Talking About It

LCD Soundsystem @ Madison Square Garden 4/2/2011

Dance Yrself Clean / Drunk Girls / I Can Change / Time To Get Away / Get Innocuous! / Daft Punk Is Playing At My House / Too Much Love / All My Friends / Tired // 45:33 part one / 45:33 part two / Sound of Silver / 45:33 part four / 45:33 part five / 45:33 part six / Freak Out/Starry Eyes /// Us V Them / North American Scum / Bye Bye Bayou / You Wanted A Hit / Tribulations / Movement / Yeah / Someone Great / Losing My Edge / Home //// All I Want / Jump Into the Fire / New York, I Love You

When I was reading through Pitchfork’s excellent You Were There: The Complete LCD Soundsystem last week, I kept thinking that I was glad that I wasn’t a part of that project because out of all the bands that mean a lot to me, LCD Soundsystem is probably the only one where I don’t think I could successfully write about them in a way that was not personal. Also, I’ve never been happy with anything I’ve written about this band. When the early singles were coming out, it was all about the thrill of discovery for me, and I wasn’t good enough back then to articulate what made the music so compelling. Later on, I shied away from getting at why certain songs connected with me because there are simply some things I don’t want to discuss in public, or in many cases, with other people at all.

My favorite LCD Soundsystem songs are tied to some of the most crucial (and often most painful) parts of my life. “Us V Them” and “North American Scum” are connected to little epiphanies; “I Can Change” is tied to a moment of horrible self-awareness. I saw them play “Jump Into the Fire” on the day I learned that my father had cancer and it provided an intense catharsis. “Someone Great” was exactly how I felt when he died, right on down to the description of the phone call.

LCD Soundsystem “Yeah”

The LCD song that means the most to me is “Yeah.” It changed the course of my life. When that song came out I was a recent art school graduate with very little going on in my life, and no direction. This site was still in a very early stage, with a tiny readership mainly comprised of internet friends. At that point in time, it was all enthusiasm. The writing wasn’t there yet, and I didn’t really think of myself as a writer at all. In December of 2003, I posted a leaked mp3 of “Yeah” and it basically put this site on the map. The traffic spiked, and miraculously pretty much everyone stuck around. That set off a chain reaction of press coverage and attention and other people starting similar sites and it completely changed everything for me. It pushed me to take this very seriously, and to become a real writer. I can’t understate the importance of this site in my life: Almost everything good about my life in the past decade is a direct result of doing this site, and I credit LCD Soundsystem and “Yeah” for creating this opportunity for me. At least in some way I owe my career to James Murphy.

“Yeah” happens to be the song that best summarizes what LCD Soundsystem was all about. The major reason why Murphy is an inspiring figure is that he will never half-ass anything. He is all about total commitment, and executing every idea as well as possible. “Yeah” is a song that expresses deep disgust toward those who only talk about their ideas. Murphy houses this loathing and frustration in one of the most ambitious compositions of his career, a work that is even more impressive in concert if just by proving that a live band can absolutely nail a complex house music track with zero compromise. Murphy raises the bar for everyone, not just musicians. His achievement is a challenge to everyone to do better.

In this way, “Yeah” never stops changing my life. I hear the sentiment in this song (and also some very similar words in “Pow Pow”) and I get anxious. His words sting because I know I am implicated and I know he’s right and I just want to prove him wrong. He makes me want to work.

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