Video: LCD Soundsystem "North American Scum"

James Murphy and company are here to they clear up some misperceptions “for those of you who still think we’re from England” on the first single from LCD Soundsystem’s forthcoming Sound Of Silver. Musically the song plays on LCD’s strengths and does it with a short running time which is something of a rarity for the project. The tinfoil heavy video parodies the artifice and excess of mainstream videos as it opens with Murphy playing a bored rock star at a photo shoot before a Hype Williams style “LCD” graphic takes the video to the moon:



: The "North American Scum" single drops later this month with Sound Of Silver expected the week of March 20 when Murphy has asked fans to pick up the album on the theory that if everyone who bought the first LCD album bought SOS then it would chart at number 1 (assuming sales matched the historic low a few weeks ago). Hear more from the band at their myspace.

Numbers

LCD Soundsytem were pretty quiet about their new album 45:33 before today so it was a bit of a shock to see a myspace bulletin shouting about a "NEW LCD SOUNDSYSTEM OUT NOW! exclusively on iTunes" when I checked my account this morning. This single track release, with a running time that is the same as the RPM of 7" singles, is the second in the series of nike/itunes workout music releases that started over the summer with a mix from The Crystal Method. Pitchfork quote the press release with James Murphy explaining that he was approached by the shoe company:

to make a long piece of music built around an arc designed for running, appealed to me because it was so anathematic to what you're typically asked to do as an artist: make easily digestible lumps of music for albums, or the radio, or whatever. I'd been thinking of the records I love in which people made one 'song' that took up the entire LP, and realizing that releasing something like this would otherwise be a virtual impossibility for me, I became excited when the project came along.

: Does this making music on demand for corporate giants signal the end of the hipster DFA empire? I doubt it. They've already gotten over the whole almost worked with Britney Spears thing and once you've admitted to that how could you do wrong? The real question is if it's worth the price itunes is charging. I like LCD Soundsystem and their album was one of my most played last year, but $9.99 for one track that you can only hear a thirty second preview of...that's asking a bit much. Admittedly I'm very intrigued by those thirty seconds, and Riff Market was impressed enough to declare "these weird goofy product branding tie-ins, ARE the NEW ALBUM" (wonder why that LCD Soundsystem bulletin linked to that review) but I really like pop songs. Well, if not traditional "pop" all the time, at least something that knows when to finish. There have been exceptions like the extended version of Orbital's "The Box", but usually if a track lasts more than fifteen minutes I just can't get into it. The Orb's "Blue Room" has an hour long version that I've never made it through even though I love the radio edit, and "Video 5-8-6", New Order's original version of "Blue Monday", tops the twenty minute mark and never justifies that running time. So ten bucks sounds a bit pricey when we are talking about a track that "ends with eight minutes of ambient echoing". Here's LCD Soundsystem doing what they do best in a short-form on "Tribulations":

Disco Infiltrator

I mentioned that I recently picked up the debut album from LCD Soundsystem, and as I expected it grew on me. What has surprised me is the backlash in the mostly positive reviews the album has received from folks who usually support electronic music with vocals. In particular I've read reviews in sideline and sickamongthepure which both claimed that it was over hyped and for people who don't understand electro (or something else to that effect). I disagree, but what I found most interesting in those reviews is that they spent as much time attacking the band's fans as the music itself leaving me feeling that they didn’t properly address the music because they didn't agree with the influences the band is sourcing for it's music. Why? It is different than most of the ebm/synthpop that sustained "the style" throughout the nineties before electroclash made vocals and electronic alright together again while bringing people back from the "techno" and indie crowds. This conservative rejection of influences from "other" on music is annoyingly consistent from reviewers in the microscene zines and all the more strange because of the claims of frustration from one of the writers from one of these about how "the scene" could be so much bigger if it made a few changes. The changes are here. Can you accept them or is this the attitude that is holding “the scene” back?