Tuesday, May 5, 2009

LCD Soundsystem- "Someone Great"



I have the horrible knack for ignoring wonderful bands and wonderful songs if too many people are talking about them. It's not completely my fault, it's conditioning. Growing up (not that I'm really an adult anyway) all the different bands and artists who were touted before me as the next big thing or the "greatest since..." whoever was the great thing that died in the 90's was a severe disappointment.

So if you come of age where the music that is popularized by pr machines and ad campaigns rather than an honest-to-god recommendation from someone you trust, be it a friend, your local record store employee or an artist you greatly enjoy you'd be pretty initially cynical about any band that got real big real quick. Unfortunately for me, as immersed as I am into underground bands, my concept of "popular" is somewhat skewed. Hence why I've willfully ignored LCD Soundsystem for so long and lately to my detriment.

For the past month I've been fretting about a song I heard on the best terrestrial radio station out and generally being frustrated 24 hours a day due to my not being able to remember a friggen song whose infectious bass line was haunting my everyday. This happens more often than I'd like it but never for a month. Imagine my relief when this morning I turned on said radio station and it was playing (thank you John Waters).

Finally listening in full to the two-year-old song I was happy to learn that the song didn't just stay in my head because it was catchy, but also because it was good. Jesse Murphy has long since proved himself to be one of the top electronic musicians around and "Someone Great" is one of the best his best examples.

Filling your head with a neo-disco groove perfectly suited for a packed house party in someones too-small-to-do-anything-but-stand-and-drink living room. Murphy's vocals seemingly are less important to adding meaning to the song but rather another layer of smooth melody in contrast to the sharp bell tones of which he harmonizes.

But most striking of the song has to be the cool delivery of what has to be some of the most melancholy lyrics in the past decade. The downer tone the song takes when you finally listen to it might be one of the reasons it never received too much notice here in the US and was pretty much relegated to widespread acclaim in the indie music circles; a factor which probably led to my not getting into the group before now.

But for the rest of the day I can now properly listen/dissect/obsess over "Someone Great" and get on with the rest of my life until the next song that gets stuck in my head comes along. If I'm lucky I'll actually have that song too.

3 comments:

  1. Cheers for your thoughts. I just bought "sound of silver" the other week and "Someone Great" is going round and round in my head. The arrangement and the lyrics. I also avoided LCD back in 07 and now looking forward to what James will do next (though I still need to check out 45:33....heard it is brilliant). Cheers again for the post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Unfortunately for me, as immersed as I am into underground bands, my concept of "popular" is somewhat skewed. Hence why I've willfully ignored LCD Soundsystem for so long and lately to my detriment."
    that's like about me)
    but u know, i didn't like LCD before and now - it's a piece of commercial - they do their money, that's ok, but it's not my bussiness, but this song is great - u are absolutely right!
    But i like 2 much DFA records (James Murphy's label) - that's really fucking cool!

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's James Murphy, not Jesse.

    ReplyDelete