LCD Soundsystem - 45:33 (2006)

1) 45:33 (Pt.1); 2) 45:33 (Pt.2); 3) 45:33 (Pt.3); 4) 45:33 (Pt.4); 5) 45:33 (Pt.5); 6) 45:33 (Pt.6) Bonus tracks 7) Freak Out / Starry Eyes; 8) North American Scum (Onanistic Dub); 9) Hippie Priest Bum-Out

Murphy and co get to make a LCD long-form dance jam without any constrictions or inhibitions.

Key tracks: If you want to split the main song, parts two and three.

James Murphy was explicitly commissioned by Nike to create 45:33, but he likely had something like this in his mind regardless and getting asked to do so was just a fortunate twist of fate. Ostensibly designed for a jogging promotion campaign, Murphy got to indulge in his dream of creating a single, album-length song and the true nature of 45:33 is in fact to be the most uncompromised incarnation of the standard long-form LCD Soundsystem jam track - this time running for nearly 46 minutes. Mostly focused on rhythm and groove and sustaining the energy for as long as possible, 45:33 is the dancefloor jam to end all jams - and just to make it clear, this is probably the purest indie disco soundtrack filler that Murphy has ever released, all four-to-the-floor and none of the introspective lyrics.

Whether coincidental or not, the six untitled parts which make up the complete composition vaguely follow the form of a standard exercise routine. Part 1 is little more than a gentle warm-up intro, parts 2 to 4 make up the body of the work-out, 5 is the last intense push and the final part is the wind-down. The part splits aren't particularly precise and in some formats it doesn't exist to begin with (instead served as one long 46-minute piece), but cutting this into chunks was never the intention either way; 45:33 is intended to be a singular session and its various sections exist solely in context with one another rather than to stand out individually. The only real exception to that is part 3 and that's completely retrospective in nature: Murphy repurposed the particular section into "Someone Great" from Sound of Silver, and because of that familiarity it now sticks out from the rest of the composition here, like it's unintentionally gatecrashing a party it wasn't aware of. For the most parts though, all the parts are built on the same ideas: mechanically precise drum hits, groove-driven bass, the occasional odd vocal sample (from Murphy or one of his friends - the second part's "shame on you!" being a particular favourite) and lush but carefully concentrated additional keyboard and synth accompaniments, served in varying tempos. While varied, once you've heard the first section you have a rough idea where the rest of it's going to go, even if there are a few minor swerves in the way.

Regardless, purely from a compositional standpoint 45:33 succeeds remarkably, in that Murphy has managed to build a long-form song that holds up together for its entire duration. While there aren't any central melodies or leitmotifs that spring throughout, each part builds on from the previous one, taking its core and spinning it into another route, and the end part of that route is then transformed by the next section; while the sections therefore are ultimately 'individual', they share so much of the same DNA throughout that you get that they're part of the same song. And perhaps the only reason I notice these sections so clearly is because I happen to own this on a format that marks them separately - maybe if I had this as a single track, I wouldn't pay so much attention to this? Still, some of the indicated parts work better than others, admittedly: the cool cat lazy funk of Part 2 is a particular favourite, while the athletically energetic 5th part - which is all racing rhythm sections and quick horn stabs - gets a bit too samey already a few minutes in.

All that said, while it all holds up together well this isn't the kind of epic showcase that many other artists' album-length songs are. In the end it's a piece set to accompany a work-out session rather than careful listening, and so its aim is to keep a set pace rather than offer all the things you'd normally find in a LCD Soundsystem release. Its main importance to the greater mythos is that that arranging this arguably helped pave way for Murphy to utilise the tricks learned in his later dancefloor-ready cuts - as an actual song, it's an enjoyable ride but not one that's so striking that it really justifies a 46-minute listening session on its own. It's background music - foot-tapping, head-bopping background music of course, but still something to occupy a space where your focus is on something else. Its impressive in many ways, but not as a song per se.

The CD version also features a handful of Sound of Silver b-sides as bonus tracks (also released separately as the Confuse the Marketplace EP). "Freak Out/Starry Eyes" is another long-form LCD jam: the "Freak Out" half is slow and thick, all deep bass, sultry synths and funk horns, while "Starry Eyes" sounds like a synth remix of the first half. It's fine, but maybe not 12-and-half minute fine, though it's best of the three. The Onanistic Dub remix of "North American Scum" is your average kind of remix, i.e. one that's listenable but where barely any of the original track remains and which goes on for at least five minutes too long. "Hippie Priest Bum-Out" relatively speeds by in comparison to the other two songs, but while it's a nifty little instrumental jam with a particularly involved percussion section, it sounds like a sketch or a demo for something that would be developed further later on. For a completionist it's nice to have the b-sides but what Murphy showcases in the two originals, he's done it better on the actual albums.

Rating: 7/10

LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem (2005)

CD1: 1) Daft Punk Is Playing at My House; 2) Too Much Love; 3) Tribulations; 4) Movement; 5) Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up; 6) On Repeat; 7) Thrills; 8) Disco Infiltrator; 9) Great Release
CD2: 1) Losing My Edge; 2) Beat Connection; 3) Give It Up; 4) Tired; 5) Yeah (Crass Version); 6) Yeah (Pretentious Version); 6) Yr City's a Sucker (Full Version)

A slightly slapdash establishment of the basics of James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem, and some essential non-album singles bundled together to both support and carry the official debut.

Key tracks: "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House", "Tribulations", "Losing My Edge"

Much like Murphy's self-cultivated image as the guy who's slept in the same suit for a full weekend, the self-titled debut for LCD Soundsystem is stylishly unkempt. Murphy was a producer, a DJ and a label head who found himself to be above average age in the crowds he was hanging out with and then made a snarky one-off song about it for his own fun, which then ballooned into a full-time band. So, the self-titled debut album for that band isn't a cry of passion from a set of young hopefuls, but rather a producer mashing together collected ideas from the past three decades of dance and rock music, like a DJ mixing his own songs. It's irreverent, but that's also its charm. At this stage LCD Soundsystem was still more about singles than albums, and the debut is really just around because he found an audience that wanted one. No grand statements or glimpses into the inner state of its creator just yet: it's all about having a good time in a way only tragically cool urbanites can.

There's a real act of fan service here in that the second disc that is included as standard with the album collects all the loosies released prior to the album. The mix of foot-tapping indie disco, ragged garage rock and off-kilter pop hooks is something that would form the backbone of the actual album too, so both discs are kindred spirits in that regard, but the one-offs are naturally a bit more uninhibited and some of the essential LCD Soundsystem cuts are in fact gathered among them. "Losing My Edge" is the obvious one, of course: Murphy's debut single is a glorious seven-and-half minute sardonic rant sent to a slick groove, it's full of immortal and infinitely quotable lines and it culminates in the most beautifully manic listing of one's record shelf in a fit of madness dear and near to any music geek's heart. It's a perfect debut single in how it establishes everything there is to know about LCD Soundsystem right from the get-go, from Murphy's dry delivery and the wit in his words to the music built on repetitive but gradually intensifying jamming, all introduced clearly. The "crass version" of "Yeah" is another mainstay favourite, offering more of that extended jamming in what is one of Murphy's best long-form dance-offs, and with other highlights like the brilliantly punchy house deep cut "Beat Connection" or the 'pretentious' brother of "Yeah" (instrumental but longer and slightly fancier arrangement), the pseudo-bonus disc would be worth the price of admission alone. The only real below-par song is "Tired", a stab at grimy garage rock which later morphs into a more recognisable LCD Soundsystem form but never shakes off coming across as an ill-fitting set of clothes you're trying to force yourself into.

The difference between the one-offs and the actual album is that the latter is a little tighter in its composition, with its shorter songs steering clear of too much jamming and with some semblance of a cohesive structure in tow. Only some; the nature of the album is still more resembling of a curated mixtape, flipping between styles and sounds. Some of these would form the basis of LCD Soundsystem to come, e.g. the swerve, swagger and post-millennium ironic snark of "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" would form the pattern for many of Murphy's later lead singles. Others are curio snapshots of Murphy trying his hand out with different things without a greater plan in mind: the ragged near-punk of "Movement" is more of Murphy's early fascinations with something rowdier and "Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up" is a 90s alt rock ballad through and through, and neither sound would make another appearance again after this album. While those offshoots have their charms (I have a particular affinity towards the somber laziness and nostalgic guitar of "Never as Tired..." especially), the strengths of the tracklist lie clearly in the material Murphy would later choose to expand upon. The lightning-in-a-bottle feeling of "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" is enduringly exciting in its wonderful 'dance hit for people who are too cool to dance' aesthetic and the synth-heavy floor fillers "Tribulations", "Too Much Love" and "Disco Infiltrator" deliver the hooks like uppercuts, striking right to the nerve. Of these, "Tribulations" especially is a bit of a hiden gem: its urgency and a more fixated tone is a mile away from the rest of the album and it picks up steam brilliantly as it progresses until it sounds like Murphy is fighting to steer it.

If not already apparent, the accurate take to take away from the album is that's more of a blueprint or a template for later works. Whether or not Murphy foresaw himself taking the band beyond this in the first instance is one thing, but it's evident that at this stage he was still testing the waters and stretching his wings, operating on a more single-oriented mindset even within the actual album. They're fun waters and LCD Soundsystem has nothing to be ashamed of next to its more famous counterparts, but it's decidedly a little rough around its edges and while the Murphy trademarks are on full display, the overall sound is lacking the later albums' greater vision and realisation of how he can merge the extroverted and introverted. It's also an odd case where the "bonus" disc is just as if not even more essential than the album itself: the two really are rather inseparable even if they're ultimately independent works, and as a full package this is so much more because of its inclusion. Summa summarum, Murphy and co's debut is a lot of fun and is full of charm, but it's very rarely anything actually essential; it's a slapdash party album for music nerds who don't want to go to parties and doesn't set its sights beyond it, but it's got the hooks and grooves to make it a load of fun regardless.

Rating: 7/10

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (2007)

1) Get Innocuous!; 2) Time to Get Away; 3) North American Scum; 4) Someone Great; 5) All My Friends; 6) Us v Them; 7) Watch the Tapes; 8) Sound of Silver; 9) New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down

Houses some of the most essential LCD Soundsystem songs, but clearly the transitional period between rag-tag indie disco hits and more cohesive statements.

Key tracks: "North American Scum", "Someone Great", "All My Friends"

 A transitional step for LCD Soundsystem, and in hindsight a weird choice to raise as the band’s canonical classic considering how unfocused it is. Sound of Silver is the sound of James Murphy stretching his legs and beginning to realise his scope and ambitions as a songwriter, not content on simply churning out more witty indie disco jams in vein of the debut. The dance rock is still present and it’s the main flavour, but Sound of Silver is most characterised by Murphy’s big step into a more personal and serious style of songwriting, both lyrically and musically. The result is a mish-mash, a quilt built from wholly different cloths and one with some serious weighting issues. The bulk of the album is still pretty indebted to the debut but it’s the couple of off-curve serious moments - particularly the one-two punch of “Someone Great” and “All My Friends” - which steal the spotlight to such extent that the rest of the album is overshadowed in comparison.

Yet Sound of Silver still works, even if it’s not necessarily as immediate as the other LCD albums. The album may be the musical equivalent of throwing around things to which stick the most, but the songs that have made the cut are mostly composed of the band’s biggest classics. Ask any LCD fan for their top five songs and there’s a chance that Sound of Silver choices take up at least half of that list. Both “Someone Great” or “All My Friends” are frequently hailed as the band’s best song for a reason and it’s one piece of canon I have to agree with, because both the former’s synth melancholy and the latter’s ever-intensifying gut purge are giant songs that still seem personal to just you alone (the right answer is between the two is, of course, “All My Friends” - it’s one of the best songs of the decade, period). “North American Scum” is the archetypal example of a direct LCD rock song full of Murphy’s iconic wit, swagger and irony and it’s the best of its kind, the smokey fond farewell “New York I Love You…” has carved its own corner as the band’s single biggest tearjerker (especially after having become the set closer of their “last” concert) and the irresistable “Get Innocuous!” is the most grooving piece of music in the band’s repertoire with its Kraftwerk-bass and snappy rhythm. You could easily make an argument for “Us v Them” to belong on that list too: Murphy and co have always loved their long, tight jams that ebb and flow around a central groove, and “Us v Them” is a great, superbly fun example of that.

With that, you’ve got over half the album listed there, and each of those songs is genuinely an important part of the band’s history and legacy. It doesn’t matter if everything is a little all over the place when each of those songs are among the band’s most important and vital statements.

If it weren’t for the three other songs, I too would probably argue for this being the band’s best record. Not to slight on the songs given all three are thoroughly good, but they’re just completely overshadowed by everything else. “Watch the Tapes” and “Time to Get Away” are fun shorter cuts and the title track’s slowly enveloping mood manages to hit a particular soft spot in me, but all of them feel underwhelming in the company they’re in, and for most parts the other songs already do what they do, just better. On an album full of essentials they feel borderline unnecessary in comparison, a group of hanger-ons and retreads that could probably impress more under another setting but here there’s a huge gap between them and the rest.

It doesn’t change the fact that Sound of Silver is pretty much the most essential LCD Soundsystem record. It’s not their best and it certainly isn’t the most consistent, but so many of Murphy’s very greatest can be found here that it is, in some ways, the definitive experience - or at the very least, an excellent definition of LCD Soundsystem’s sound and why the group originally known just for their irreverent indie floor-fillers turned out to make a far great impact.

Rating: 8/10