5. LCD Soundsystem- 2005
Now we get to the really good stuff. In LCD Soundsystem's debut album James Murphy and company create one of the most versatile albums out there. Where as groups like TV on the Radio and the like manage to approach multiple genres within a single album, LCD does it in a single song, with so many tracks creating a perfect harmony between rock, techno, and pop. James Murphy bounces between an emotionally drained individual as in tracks like “Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up”, too an apathetic and sterile dance fueled android in tracks like “Too Much Love”. “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” is the kind of heading pounder you wanna playing along with if you have a guitar, yet its still my favorite song to hear in a club. “Tribulations” has an ominous robotic quality to its sound, but is accompanied by very personable lyrics. “Movement” has a somewhat slow build up to it, but then descends in to a slurry sleazy punk realm. “Loosing My Edge”, in particular is a track that needs to be studied. No single song this decade was encapsulated what has happened to music, and what it means to be a fan. 20 years ago, you could spend ages scouring every record store and garage sale to build an evermore complete record collection. Such commitment meant something, that you really cared about the medium; it made you cool. Today, any kid can spend a couple hours googling some bands and wind up with more b-sides and unreleased tracks than their parents ever had. How are these people better informed and cooler than people like himself, Murphy laments. And the worst part is he realizes, they're all actually kind of nice people. Luckily this album is very cool, and listening to it will make you cool too!
Best Tracks- Daft Punk is Playing at My House, Tribulations, Never as Tired as When I'm Waking up, Loosing My Edge
4. The Strokes- Is This It?- 2001
For some reason, The Strokes became the most polarizing figures in music for the time after their release of Is This It? Some said they were dopey brats that got lucky, others said they had saved rock and roll. I fall closer to the latter category. I don't think they saved rock music, but they along with the White Stripes, helped it survive and remain relevant for at least another 5 years or so. What's interesting is that that is far from what Julian Casablancas and company were trying to do as their music was so effortlessly carless and nonchalant it seems preposterous that they had some grand scheme behind it all; by comparison, they make Vampire Weekend look like they are trying really hard. And that what was so refreshing about this album when it released. Do you remember what rock was like back than? The engaging and thought provoking malcontents that were Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails had long since fallen by the wayside to be replaced by monotonous godawful moan fests about trivial matters from groups like Nickelback, Popa Roach, who ever else was popular in 2000. Then The Strokes came along; their music was fun, breezy, refreshing. Julian had a slurry unrehearsed voice that lacked polish, and that was just fine. They didn't need any stupid message in their song, instead they filled it with zany non sequiters and inside jokes about life as privileged New Yorkers. By truly working together as group instead of letting a prima donna vocalist gum up the works they made 13 instantly likeable and catchy tunes. “Someday” evokes such a strong sense of nostalgia, even though your listening to something that never happened to you; “Hard To Explain” has one of the best openings, best guitar hooks, best chorus, best everything that came out that year; If you don't love “Last Night” for its grungy, spastic simplicity, then you're no fun. One should stop thinking about this albums impact and just enjoy it for what it was.
Best Tracks- The Modern Age, Someday, Last Night, Hard to Explain
3. Of Montreal- Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?- 2007
While I may get really annoyed when people say they don't like bands like Radiohead or the like, I can't really fault a person for not liking Of Montreal. They are undeniably weird. They are the Mad Hatter of music; extremely chipper and enthusiastic, but in a very bizarre almost unsettling way. Hissing Fauna is by far the best of their work and very stylisticly separate from their other albums. Where as previous and future LPs are kinda all over the place, Hissing Fauna instead focuses on one singular and particularly awful event in singer Kevin Barnes life; each song represents one stage in the long messy process of dealing with it. “She's a Rejector” is inconsolable rage at the person who did this to him. “Gronlondic Edit” represents a first attempt to be pretend to be over it and finding something else to focus on (religion? Friends?). “Cato as a Pun” is complete and utter depression and giving up on pretty much everything. “A Sentence of sorts in Kongsvinger” is excitement over using this experience to make a better person of one's self. “We Were Born the Mutants Again With Leafing” is finally achieving acceptance and “Labrinthian Pomp” is actually getting yourself out there and learning to have fun again. Yes, the track names are very strange. And the music isn't in chronological order creating a sort of Tarantino-esque puzzle for you to try and rearrange All the tracks are very poppy; even the depressing ones. They're all very glossy, which is sort of a contrast to their more low fi methods found in early work. While previous influences came from more traditional 60s pop rock, here we see heavy influence from artists like Prince, and it works very well. All of this would make Hissing Fauna a great album, but its because of one song, “The Past is A Grotesque Animal”, that it's one of my favorite. The 11 minute monolithic centerpiece to the entire album, “The Past is a Grotesque Animal” begins with an ominous sense of dread, builds steadily towards its climax and then explodes at the end with a sound that can best be described as flying saucers on fast forward. Chronologically, this track is one of the closest to the occurrence of the aforementioned yet non descript event. As a result Barnes, is borderline incoherent with a blend of despair, rage, fear, and confusion; and he spends the song slowly but surely purging himself from all of this creating one of my favorites sets of lyrics ever in a song. So ya, its pretty weird.
Best Tracks- Suffer for Fashion, Gronlondic Edit, The Past is a Grotesque Animal, We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafing
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Show Your Bones- 2006
For all the blistering savagery of their first LP, people were mostly caught off guard by the stylings of Show Your Bones. Much of it was actually quite reserved with Karen O saving her violent outbursts for only certain occasions instead of screaming the whole time. With this album the group showed they weren't just some cacophonous one trick pony and that “Maps” wasn't some anomalous abnormality. Rather, O showed that genuine sincerity was actually something she excelled at, as shown on tracks like “Dudley” and “Turn In To”. This change in direction turned some people off certainly, but I really enjoyed it. Sure, there are still plenty of loud nasty tracks like “Phenomena” and “Mysteries”; and they're really great. But I don't consider them to be the albums high points. Rather I prefer tracks like “The Sweets” and “Warrior”, for these show Karen O's greatest strength; her ability to start of as quiet and even timid, then without any notice drastically and abruptly explode into a roaring beast. Lyrically this is also a wonderful album. It's mostly very non literal and extremely vague. This is by design I believe; I read in an interview with O once that she thought that lyrics tend to age very poorly, especially if they revolve around the specifics. For that reason her lyrics are intentionally vague. She speaks in abstracts and mysterious metaphors, describing events in terms of colors in “The Sweets”. In “Turn In To”, she says she wants to become like someone else and something else, but she doesn't reveal who or what or why; instead all you can do is take her enthusiastic and optimistic word for it. It's simple but its one of my favorite songs in terms of just lyrics. “Gold Lion” exemplifies everything I just said that was good about this album. She tells a bizarre story of what can perhaps be best described as being possessed, and as such she does seem like two different people in the song. A restrained slightly anxious person, and a terrifying monster howling at the moon by the end. It's one of my favorite songs ever and easily the best thing this band has ever done.
Best Tracks- Gold Lion, The Sweets, Warrior, Turn In To
1. LCD Soundsystem- Sound of Silver- 2007
“All My Friends” is my favorite song ever. It starts with a lightning fast piano beat best likened to the musical equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. The song for nearly all of its 7 minute span, is driven forward by James Murphy's vocals as he tries to explain through small pieces of stories and his own history what it is like to be forced to grow up. Not the simplistic benin denotation of such a concept, such as having to pay bills and not being able to stay out till 4 getting shit faced. But instead being forced to take stock of who you are and find out what pieces of yourself you want to endure and what pieces you must regretfully let go of, even if they were the best parts of yourself. It has my favorite set of lyrics, more so than “The Past is a Grotesque Animal” by Of Montreal or “Turn Into” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It's extremely personable and relatable (“if the sun comes and we still down wanna stagger home/ then it's the memory of our betters that are keeping us on our feet”) and it forces you to realize one day you too will be faced with such a dilemma. It concludes with Murphy, using what seems to be a single massive breath of air, forcing a grand climatic finale to it all, then it quickly dies off.
Someone Great is also in my top ten all time favorite songs. It consists of this uniquely inquisitive and compelling computerized beat, that's so full and rich sounding that your almost surprised that the song even needed lyrics when Murphy starts singing (actually its an abbreviated version of what was originally a purely instrumental track) Again, Murphy shows himself to be extremely adept at writing as the song describes the departure of someone; something that is so hard for him to discuss, that he actually can't. Instead, the best he can do is to focus on the peripheries of the event, things like the weather that day, the coffee he had, hearing a phone ring. By using everyday occurrences as a means to situate himself in such a volatile moment, he is able to avoid being completely disoriented. There is a lot going on in Sound of Silver
One of the things I find so compelling about this album is that, more so than most of albums of this time, James Murphy and company take pop music and present it in a way that is not only interesting but meaningful; as if it was a genre that was capable of real depth. This is a concept that has at worst not been seriously considered since the early 90s and at best not successfully communicated since the same time. This is a real shame since pop, (all of its trend following minutia not withstanding) is a genre that has an incredible amount of versatility, and LCD Soundsystem utilizes this to its fullest. At times it is remorseful and contemplative. In “New York I Love You But Your Bringing Me Down”, Murphy laments what has happened to the city that once inspired him. it is also aggressive and confrontational. In “North American Scum” he attempts to apologize for a post Bush America, but instead comes off as having way to much fun in his excuses that he comes to be emboldened and proud of their brash flaws, with a grungy and brazen beat to follow suit. Nearly every song is brilliant for one reason or another. Nancy Wang's dead pan vocals at the end of the mysterious “Get Innocuous” are perfect. Murphy yelling at the top of his lungs in “Us V. Them” about being drunk and lonely, and still sounding entirely triumphant about it is awesome, especially after the slow methodical build up to that point makes you think that point will never come. “New York I Love You” was the best way to end the album. It starts out slow and sedate making you think the album will fade away quietly then it kicks in with a roaring cacophonous guitar and Murphy claiming that he might just be right about everything he said and then Sound of Silver burns out. Just we you think its done, they actually play themselves off the stage.
Best Tracks- North American Scum, Someone Great, All My Friends, New York I love But You're bringing me down
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