ByeBye LCD Soundsystem.

I've been thinking quite a bit recently about the relationship between age and music. It stems a lot from looking at my parents and older people in general and wondering why there is, almost universally, an age you reach where you stop being primarily concerned with new music. Witnessing this, I wonder to myself if that will happen to me when I'm settled down and middle aged.

Then I start to realise how my relationship with music has changed even in the few short years I've been alive and the even shorter number of years I've been properly listening to music. Now I'm getting older and edging towards the terrifying edge of adulthood, I've been around long enough to see things change for me musically. Not just in terms of what I listen to, but in the goings on of the musical world. I've been able to watch bands emerge from the underground and release a debut (Warpaint). Or change their sound (Arctic Monkeys). Or sell out (Kings of Leon). And, sadly, I'm now seeing bands calling it a day.

Last night, Saturday, 2nd of April 2001, LCD Soundsystem played their last ever show at Madison Square Gardens in New York. The band was the project of James Murphy, the coolest middle aged man ever (I don't think he's got to a stage where he stops listening to new music) Since they first came about in 2001, the band were one of the most exciting, innovative and insightful bands on the planet. I was blessed enough to see them play live back in November and it was one of the greatest gigs I've ever been to.

So saying good bye to them is hard. For me and, I imagine, for a lot of people. James Murphy has called it a day because he feels the band has run its natural course.

So why is it hard for me to say goodbye? I wasn't around when they exploded onto the scene in 2001 so they're not a bad who've soundtracked my life. I only got into them about 18 months ago. But in that time, LCD Soundsystem have influenced my ideas about what music in massive ways.

1. Sarcasm, irony, knowingness and bluntness
Before I started listening to LCD Soundsystem, I didn't really have any sense of how much a band could use the above notions in their music. James Murphy is one of the few special lyricists who make me laugh out loud. He burst onto the scene in 2001 with "Losing My Edge", a hilariously blunt, self-mocking confession of how, as he became a 30-something DJ, he began I'm "losing [his] edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties". He's so full of hilarious self-analysis, and it comes across in his delivery as well as the lyrics. Everything's just laced with irony and insightful sarcasm, and I was blown away to hear it for the first time, which I think was on the title track from Sound of Silver: "Sound of silver talk to me, makes me want to feel like a teenager/Until you remember the feelings of a real live emotional teenager". Very few people can pull it off without sounding either desperate or arrogant. The only other person who's up on the same levels for me is Morrissey with The Smiths - and I think my appreciation for his sarcasm/witticisms (which I now adore) is a direct result of gaining an appreciation for it via LCD Soundsystem.

2. Singing about other music
There's a dude on Twitter who goes by the name of Discographies, because he wittily sums up an artist's entire discography in 140 characters. This was his for LCD:

'LCD Soundsystem: 1 "Music about other music..."; 2 "...acquires unexpected resonance..."; 3 "...if you explain the trick and then vanish."'

LCD Soundsystem were, in a lot of ways, a band concerned with other music. It comes across in the lyrics immensely. The lament of competitive DJ life in "Losing My Edge", the hilarious proposition of a Daft Punk hosted house party in "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" or the more subtle moments. One of my favourite lines for some reason has always been one from "All My Friends": "That's how it starts/We go back to your house/We check the charts/And start to figure it out". That image of checking the charts with someone and trying to figure out what it's all about, why it's all so messed up, really resonated with me. It was amazing to hear an artist singing about other music and his relationship with it, at a time where I was really starting to realise how seriously I take music and the part it plays in my life.

The way Murphy makes his influences clear in the music itself was fascinating for me as well. He does it whilst always sounding so gloriously original, at every turn. He wears a love for Can, Kraftwerk, David Bowie and countless others proudly on his sleeve, but he never gets drowned in his influences, only pays homage to them - a fact which has massively shaped my expectations of how a band should relate to its influences.

3. Helping and caring about the music industry
A dude as concerned with music as James Murphy could never resist having his say in the industry at large. In 2001, he and some colleagues set up DFA Recordings, a fantastically consistent record label that's home so some of the most innovative and individual bands around. I love it when artists start their own labels and really nurture them and have a clear purpose for them (there's a lot of shared sound and influence in DFA bands).

Also, when scalpers started selling tickets for the last LCD shows at extortionate prices, Murphy had this to say: "i will try to figure a way out to fuck these fuckers. NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, IT IS NOT WORTH THAT KIND OF MONEY TO SEE US!...1500 for a single ticket? Fuck you, scalpers. You are parasites. I HATE you."

4. Making music that's intelligent, danceable AND rock n roll
LCD Soundsystem have been a band who've carried the torch of "dance-punk" throughout the past 10 years, and they really do the term justice. They combine lyrics which are constantly spot on with music that you could pour onto the dancefloor until sunrise, and it's all done with an attitude of screwing everyone else, and often delivered with some hilariously earnest screams to make the point even clearer - "North American Scum", "Drunk Girls", "Dance Yrself Clean", plenty more all clear examples. LCD Soundsystem taught me that a band shouldn't just be limited to making music that fills one particular criterion - being rock and roll or being intelligent or being danceable. All three can co-exist seamlessly, if you do it right.

5. They're a kick ass live band

Just watch and wait for 4:20:




6. They're just so real
At the end of the day, James Murphy and everyone who's ever contributed to his group, has exuded in interviews, on stage, on record, in videos, that they love what they doing and that they care so much about getting it right and giving it to the fans. Most artists love their fans but I have yet to see anyone who's really as clued in about how music works in and affects someone's life as James Murphy. He is a once in a generation kind of guy. And I'm glad he was around in mine.

Bye James.