Playing Catch-Up: Part XVIII

Artist: LCD Soundsystem
Album: ‘American Dream‘
Year: 2017

Retirement is fucking overrated. LCD Soundsystem made a big deal about hanging up their gear only to come back with an album that, not only encapsulates the essence of their sound, but builds upon it in weird and wonderful ways. This could have been an album of wacky and aimless experimentation but, instead, it was focused and really slick. Definitely a must-listen.

Track of Distinction: “Call the Police” is just a good jam by the band that is both infectious while being very simple at its core.

Artist: Ke$ha
Album: ‘Rainbow‘
Year: 2017

Ke$ha is becoming the artist I had hope Katy Perry would have the guts to become. This album is daring without becoming an art piece. She dug into her will to be an artist–I’m guessing this is a result from her awful and all-too public legal battle with her shitface former producer–to make a shockingly diverse, eclectic, and very well-done album that, not only includes her signature sound, but also a couple of country-inspired hits. She did a duet with Dolly Parton and it’s awesome! In fact …

Track of Distinction: Her duet with legend Dolly Parton, “Old Flames (Can’t Hold a Candle To You),” is magic and feels like a torch is being passed from one generation to another.

Artist: Gogol Bordello
Album: ‘Seekers and Finders‘
Year: 2017

It stinks to come off of two really solid offerings from great performers to hear an album that seems to be a husk of the band’s former self. Gogol Bordello endeared themselves as the raucous gypsy-punk badasses but, on this album, take it a few notches down and really seem to phone it in. This sounds more like a shitty Coldplay album than anything resembling punk rock. Shame!

Track of Distinction: “Saboteur Blues” would be a nice bridging song between what the band was and what it wants to become if what it wanted to become was something better.

Artist: Iron & Wine
Album: ‘Beast Epic‘
Year: 2017

There is something to be said for consistency in the face of an industry that seems to embrace change for the sake of change. Sam Beam’s project continues with another album filled with songs that seem to be made out of blood, sweat, and bone leaving me to wonder how he doesn’t sleep for a month after every studio session. Though deeply personal and extremely moving, he doesn’t let the listener carry the load leaving the sound deceptively light and refreshing. Sound weird? Just listen.

Track of Distinction: “Call It Dreaming,” like much of the rest of the album, is light, refreshing, and very relaxing.

LCD Soundsystem

Album:
‘LCD Soundsystem‘ (2005)
‘Introns‘ (2006)
‘All My Friends‘ (2007)
‘A Bunch of Stuff‘ (2007)
‘Sound of Silver‘ (2007)
‘This Is Happening‘ (2010)
‘London Sessions‘ (2010)

I realized a few years ago that I’m an associative learner, meaning I learn by comparing and contrasting new things and ideas with things and ideas I already know. This is not an advanced stage of learning, in fact it’s more closely related to how adolescents learn, but it has served me well in my life and I’m not going to give up on it now. With this project, I find myself doing the same with these bands, and I’m going to do it again. That said, LCD Soundsystem reminds me of Legos.

Bear with me, here …

In an age where anyone and everyone can remix music to their own tastes, to make a generic song into a dance club hit, or to expand their own brand as a DJ or a producer or a sound mixer or whatever, there is no other music that lends itself to the inevitable remix more than LCD Soundsystem. To begin with, their music is elegant and simplistic beauty incarnate. It seems like it is flashy on the top but deep down it is pure and simple and clean. Using these building blocks of sound, there have been dozens of remix tracks made that keep with the core of the original track but takes it to a new level. Just like with Legos, these remixers take the standard set, break it down, and the rebuild it as something new.

But there’s something else about LCD Soundsystem that I believe but cannot prove, and that’s the entire career of this band, from stem to stern, is some kind of stunk or prank. Starting with ‘Daft Punk is Playing At My House‘ on down, it seems like the tracks (or at least the lyrics) are less than legit. It’s Weird Al without the parody aspect of it. Perhaps the band wanted to make good music and fudged on the lyrics afterward but, in the end, I really don’t care. The music is solid, the tracks are great (I’m looking forward to running more and more), and this was a great, unique step in this journey (and that step wasn’t on a Lego).

Track of Distinction: ‘Us Vs. Them‘ should be labeled a gateway drug. If you put this track on the iPod of a pop music listener it might make them seek out other electronic bands–the hard stuff–while seeding itself as the basis for addiction. If you can’t tell, I’m working on writing hyperbole without superlatives.