LCD Soundystem, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down

LCD Soundystem's death, which came last week with a string of sold-out shows at Terminal 5 and Madison Square Garden, received much more attention than the band did during its life. Sure, the ticket scandal that accompanied the MSG show attracted attention. But I suspect real reason was James Murphy, the band's creator and leader, actually did what music critics wish every band did: LCD Soundsystem quit while it was ahead. No world tour behind their 11th record, released with every member in his or her mid-50s. No promise of a comeback record after three subpar ones. Not even accreted bitter resentment that compelled everyone to split while still at their height. Only a happy retirement, with three loved records and an impeccable reputation for embracing and skewering cultural elitism as no one else can.

As wonderful as LCD Soundystem's albums are, Murphy never really wrote great albums. He wrote great songs that, after a few years of singles, were packaged into albums. Each song was so long, at about seven minutes each, that the albums don't build momentum as a full work. By the time you've reached the end, it's hard to remember where you started 65 minutes and nine songs ago. But this didn't matter because each song's structure served as its own album. Murphy is a master of dynamics, aural and emotional. His songs ride crescendos and decrescendos like very few others can, building layers of intricately locked parts and taking them apart. The best, such as "All My Friends," which may be the best song ever, can do nothing but explode into epiphanies. Murphy is a man who can turn a song where the only lyric is "Yeah!" into brilliance.

Jon Caramanica's review of LCD Soundystem's and the Strokes' shows at MSG last weekend wistfully recalled 2001-2002, when New York was at the top of world's musical scene and Manhattan was in the midst of its last gap as an exciting center of culture. The bands perhaps borrowed too liberally from their influences, but then, everyone who writes a song does that, and they did it very well. Manhattan doesn't feel alive with energy like this anymore. Brooklyn probably does, but I haven't been there in a long time and don't know.

Unlike Murphy, the Strokes had to use their show as a comeback one because they nearly cracked during the past five years. Perhaps this shows that Murphy knew what he was doing when building LCD Soundsystem. Rather than ride a fierce hype wave with the Strokes, he mainly spent the first three years producing other bands' records, running his label, DFA, DJing and releasing his own singles. Then his first three albums built and built in their success to the point of relative stardom and now he's bowed out. The development of his career actually sounds like that of an LCD Soundsystem song.

Anyway, to the good times: Above is a video for "All My Friends," which is a song about trying to keep your friends while growing old. I haven't been able to stop singing it for the past week.