LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
Week 11
THE PITCH
The second album from LCD Soundsystem represents a defining point in their sound. It’s indie at its most distilled and perfect. It’s whimsical and reflective. It’s delicate but loud. They’re an exceptionally talented bunch and the kind of band your favourite musicians enjoy listening to. It’s an album you can sit and enjoy in full and come away from it feeling satisfied like a perfectly portioned meal.
Andrew Perry
MY RESPONSE
You haven’t given me much to start me off, Andrew so I assume this is a favourite of yours and you want to spread the love. Whimsical and reflective sounds positive. I can’t imagine how delicate and loud is going to work…
On my first listening I wondered if you’d thrown this at me to test me in some way, especially when I’d only heard that first track, Get Innocuous (good title though). So much relentless repetition, such long, long tracks, that insistent beat, the intros that go on and on and on. But then, every now and then, there were snippets of lyrics and threads of melody that made sense to me. And it’s catchy. It’s definitely catchy. That repetitive, insistent beat continued to bother me though – I wanted to be able to isolate it and press ‘send to back’ so I could concentrate more on the melody and voice. Or I want it to vary more.
But then as I listened again and again, there were some tracks that started to win me over. I love the sound of Someone Great. The first couple of times it felt like that beat was a screen in front of the poignant lyrics, but as I listened I stopped hearing it that way and the lyrics and melody seemed to step forward. I suppose this is simply a perception thing. I was thinking about how irritated I was by the repetitive rhythm and so that’s what I was hearing, but once I stopped focusing on that, the rest of the track came to the fore. I am very much feeling my lack of musical vocabulary here.
This is a funny one, this album. I feel like I shouldn’t like it. It does lots of things I definitely don’t like: too electronic, too much repetition, some of the lyrics pass me by totally, too long tracks, that monotonous beat. ‘Delicate but loud,’ you said. I think this is my problem with it. The loud seems to be at odds with the delicate in places.
But there’s stuff in there that works for me: some of the lyrics, some of the melodies, the voice. ‘Whimsical and reflective’ is a great description of the bits of lyric I do get. I love that line in New York I Love You, ‘There’s a ton of the twist/But we’re fresh out of shout’, and the endlessly repeating words of Sound of Silver itself are spot on: ‘Makes you want to feel like a teenager/Until you remember the feelings of/A real-life emotional teenager/Then you think again’ (although to be honest seven minutes of this makes no sense to me). I like Watch the Tapes a lot – that chatty singing style and something in the quality of his voice reminds me of Jonathan Richman.
Maybe part of the problem is that I don’t know how to listen to it. You said ‘you can sit and enjoy it’ but I think sitting is exactly what you can’t do. It wants to be loud and in your face or soft and in your face and it wants all your attention. I watched a bit of them playing All My Friends at Glastonbury last year and I think that’s probably what it needs – a huge crowd bellowing the lyrics and jumping up and down. That, as I’m sure you know, is my idea of hell. But, as with a lot of things I’ve listened to so far this year, I can tell you that this also works well on a bike.
WHAT ELSE I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO THIS WEEK
Kate Bush Hounds of Love
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition
Dua Lipa Future Nostalgia
XTC Skylarking
Blondie Parallel Lines
Amadou & Mariam Dimanche à Bamako
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook
The Puppini Sisters Betcha Bottom Dollar
The Beatles Sgt Pepper