LCD Soundsystem :: Drunk Girls, Pow Pow, Greenberg
First up, we got the first single from the new LCD Soundsystem album, which is yet to be titled. The song is called "Drunk Girls," and is pretty vintage LCD Soundsystem when it comes to the lyrics, although the style of the song is slightly different than what he (James Murphy... he's all of LCD). He keeps the sort of dry, witty lyrics commenting on hipsterculture (hence forth to be known as hipsterture), in the same vein as "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" or the classic "Losing My Edge," but he changes up the music style a good deal IMO. He uses more vocal tracks and on the primary vocal tracks, he actually sings a bit more, whereas in most of his "funnier" songs, he is essentially just talking into the mic. The music itself is pretty upbeat and has a simple drum beat. It's guitar based, mostly going off just a repeated riff, and it definitely lends itself to a very different sound for LCD that is enjoyable but not wonderful. I have a feeling the rest of the album, although it may be different from his previous stuff, won't really be like this. No really HQ mp3s have popped up yet, so I figure instead of making you suffer lowQ I'd just give you the official version, even if it is just a stream. You can find the .mp3s yourself.
The next song, even though it is only a sample from a song from the album, is certainly back in his old style, really more in the style of the first album. It has him essentially yelling the chorus of the name of the song over the more complex sounding electronica style drum beat, with a bass line that repeats, and then he goes into just speaking the lyrics in a rhythmic way, and then at the end of the verse repeating the last line in a yell. I also have a feeling the album won't be like this... my guess is it will be upbeat and poppy. Here's a minute and a half of this song (it's all that's out).
mp3: Pow Pow
Finally, I just saw Greenberg. If you don't know, it's a Noah Baumbach (Directed of The Squid and the Whale and Wes Anderson bud) film, it's about some Angelenos (as in LA) who feel they are failures and don't really know how it ever happened, and it was scored by James Murphy, AKA LCD Soundsystem. To briefly talk about the movie, it is much more of a character study than anything else, centering around Ben Stiller's Roger Greenberg, a nervous, socially troubled, 40 year old failure who is house-sitting for his brother in LA while he is off opening a hotel in Vietnam, or doing something else to indicate that he is successful and has kids, etc. The story centers around the relationship he develops with his brother's young assistant/babysitter for his kids, played excellently by Greta Gerwig, and how he reconnects with his old bandmate Ivan. I'm not going to really talk about the movie at all, but I will say that despite getting off to a little bit of a slow start and the feeling that some of Ben Stiller's nervous breakdowns felt a little forced, the movie still did a very good job of showing us a glimpse into the life of a, if not physically then mentally, vulnerable man.
The music did for the most part evoke the feelings desired by each scene, whether it was a day party for adults or Greenberg panicking about making a split decision; it essentially was what you would expect out of a movie soundtrack, not an LCD Soundsystem album, except for perhaps two or three cases, and even then they didn't really sound like traditional LCD. I think that that was good because it directed the attention to what was going on and did not distract you, and when they were pieces that were essentially songs, they were more in the montage style scenes, so it complimented the scenes perfectly. Two songs that stood out were piano based, and were in the style of Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up or New York, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down, but my favorite was "Photographs," an acoustic guitar based ballad. They all had the melancholy feel to them which contributed to the mood very nicely. I think as a whole, the score showed a certain maturity from James Murphy in that he knew where to hold back with the score (as in the part where it was essentially just background music) so that you barely even noticed it and it was just another part of the scene, where to make you notice the score so that you felt you were being indicated that you were supposed to feel something, and finally in that he showed he knew how to create songs that were not what he normal makes and also did not overwhelm a scene.
mp3: Photographs
-- A Teenage Elephant... Be Seeing You (Anybody know what I'm referencing?)
PS
Fellow Canadians Broken Social Scene and The New Pornographers each just released singles from each of their highly anticipated upcoming albums. They're worth a look.
