LCD Soundstystem American Dream
Five years ago when our house exploded, losing the turntable was mostly an afterthought. Our more immediate concerns were replacing the refrigerator, stove, water heater, all the light bulbs and eventually even the CD player. It wasn’t difficult getting used to not having a record player because we hadn’t exactly been using it every day to begin with. Eventually I took the records downstairs, and the turntable gathered coins and mail like a ping pong table gathers laundry.
A friend gave us an old Kenwood KD-2000 that needed a new belt. After replacing the belt, it seemed clear it needed a new motor. So after another year of dust-gathering, we took it to the nearest broken turntable repair shop, which was all the way down in Seattle (Washington). They fixed it up like new and I brought it home and got the records back out of the basement.
I’m not a freak like some people I know, but I romanticize vinyl records as much as the next agnostic. I love how records feel and smell, how they flip. One’s own personal history with a particular record is much more acutely delighted in with an LP than with a CD or some dumb playlist. Records are for reals.
But until I started droppin’ the stylus, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the ritual of playing vinyl. Selecting one, de-sleeving the wax, examining the label on the actual record to see which side is which, putting your favorite face-up on the platter and starting the motor. Then-- with your own human flesh hand-- moving the needle over and dropping it softly on the edge. The brief crackle of imperfection followed by song one.
Then twenty minutes later picking the needle back up and starting the whole process over. A side in time…
But just because I was between working turntables didn’t mean I stopped accumulating records. And after five years, there was a little stack of strange. I’d had these new records for years without listening to them! Some of the stuff we’d already owned on other formats and others probably got streamed. But a lot of it was virgin, much of it still sealed. It’s been fun catching up, like a month of Christmases…
DAY#1: LCD Soundsystem, American Dream. Christmas gift from the kids, 2021. Favorite side: a
If you’d played me this record in 1983 and told me I’d love it in 40 years, I’d have come at you. Hell, 10 years ago. But I’m not the least bit hesitant to say I love LCD Soundsystem.
I don’t really think of LCD Soundsystem as a band—even though they have a very consistent historical membership that plays actual musical instruments. To me, it’s James Murphy and beats—stuff I used to call disco. Until very recently, I recklessly grouped anything that didn’t have a distorted electric guitar as the predominant instrument into the category of ‘disco.’ I know better now. But really not all that much better...
I’m a vocal-centric music appreciator. If I don’t like the singing, I can’t like the band. See: Neil Young, the Police, Hüsker Dü, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Ozzy Sabbath. If I like the singing, I can get into most anything. Including disco.
American Dream was a comeback record for LCD Soundsytem in 2017. I’d be lying if I said I could tell it apart from ‘their earlier stuff’ but now that I have my own copy of one of their albums maybe that changes. It’s an ambitious work, clocking in at more than 68 minutes spread over two discs. It would have made a great single album.
There’s a lot of variety here—especially for disco. There’s even some guitar, like on the hard-driving “Emotional Haircut.” There’s also some of that stretched out percussion mural trance jamming (Murphy on lead cowbell) reminiscent of the Talking Heads’ “Cross-eyed and Painless” which feels like when you open your eyes at a party with a guitar in your hands and realize that awful noise is coming from you.
The nicest moments, though, are the sparsest ones—patiently developing vocal melodies set against a brocade of pastel tones that takes on more definition with each listening. The first track “Oh Baby” is dreamy and aptly named; the title track finds the band auditioning for Angelo Badalamenti’s recently-vacated position.
One thing I’ve always valued about LCD Soundsystem is Murphy’s rye humor. It’s here on American Dream, but you have to dig a little harder for it. There’s no “Daft Punk is Playing at my House” on this record...
Of course, one of the great joys of LPs is the large format artwork. We got pretty accustomed to squinting at photos and liner notes in the ‘90s, but returning to the acreage of the vinyl sleeve is easy on the retinas. American Dream itself is kind of a disappointment in this category, though, with minimalist packaging that looks and feels like it was produced at the community college printshop.
I’m not the least bit hesitant to say I love LCD Soundsystem. They’d probably be my favorite band if I’d been at those first Suicide practices. Instead, I grew up on hard rock.
Tomorrow: Broken Teeth, Bulldozer