Music
The 11 best LCD Soundsystem songs
Why have a Top Ten when you can have one more? We rank the best LCD Soundsystem songs
In April 2011, as the band smashed out the final moments of ‘New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down’ and white balloons fell on Maddison Square Garden, fans of LCD Soundsystem were heartbroken at the reality of never seeing James Murphy and his band again. They were a band inherently linked to New York, a key player in the early 2000s Meet Me in the Bathroom era, wedding dance and punk music styles into a sound that would dominate the first decade of the millennium.
But however much LCD Soundsystem flirt with endings, the electric energy of their crowds at their live shows and festivals has the power to pull them back. After Murphy said the band were on a full hiatus in 2021, a year later the band came to London for a six sold-out shows at O2 Academy Brixton.
With recent news that they return to O2 Academy Brixton to up the ante with an eight-night residency, we pick 11 of LCD Soundsystem’s best ever songs.
11. Losing My Edge
(LCD Soundsystem, 2005)
Borrowing the tight, chuggy rhythm of Killing Joke’s ‘Change’, LCD Soundsystem’s first ever single captures the anxiety of a then 35-year-old feeling out of place among a younger, hotter and trendier crowd of New York hipsters at the turn of the millennium (it was first released as a standalone single in 2002). There are several layers of fairly indulgent irony, admittedly, but it’s a perfect timestamp of that era, with a neat musical history of what lead up to it, from post-punk at CBGBs to disco at Paradise Garage.
10. Yeah (Crass Version)
(LCD Soundsystem, 2005)
Punchier than its so-called “Pretentious” counterpart, this hypnotic, goofy and contorting dance epic featured on one of the pre-album EPs before eventually making it onto disc 2 of the debut. For all its basic, one-word motif – have a guess what that is – Murphy has admitted it was one of the hardest songs he’s ever made.
9. Daft Punk Is Playing at My House
(LCD Soundsystem, 2005)
Murphy may have been one of the first to play Daft Punk to the rock kids, as he bemoans and boasts in ‘Losing My Edge’, but on this track he imagines what it’d be like to be a fan hosting the French duo at a house party – kegs, jocks, fist fights and all. He even envisaged creating a film where they actually put this party on, though it was never realised. But the familiar imagery of its lyrics and its jagged, frenetic energy has kept it an indisputable banger regardless.
8. Big Ideas
(21 – Music From The Motion Picture, 2008)
Alongside late 2000s indie classics like MGMT’s ‘Time To Pretend’ and Peter Bjorn and John’s ‘Young Folks’, this LCD Soundsystem deep cut featued on the soundtrack of the heist film 21. It’s a quintessential LCD heady jam, sounding as if Queens of the Stone Age tried to sound like the Beach Boys, and remains a fan favourite, despite never appearing on an album, not available on streamers and long gone from the set list.
7. I Can Change
(This Is Happening, 2010)
This bop’s off-kilter bubbling belies the desperation to save a doomed relationship – a winning combination for those heatbroken on the dancefloor. Its gentle, 80s instrumentation, steady mid tempo and gorgeous vocal work make it a pleasing change of pace from much of an LSD Soundsystem set, pulling this dance between hope and desperation into cleaner focus.
6. oh baby
(American Dream, 2017)
Another softer number, ‘oh baby’ was a standout on the band’s last full length album, American Dream. The repeated piano at the beginning plays almost like the start of ‘All My Friends’, except here a big friendly giant of a synth guides us into this dreamy, shimmering space threatened by blotches of sadness.
5. Home
(This Is Happening, 2010)
Sorry, but if the click clack, wooden block sounds at the beginning of ‘Home’ don’t unlock some latent childhood happiness then there’s no saving you. But though its hook might stir up a kind of simple nostalgia, this song is all about shutting the door on the past, moving on and accepting the reality of the present. Murphy often uses an album’s closing track as a sense of reprise and with a pinch of homecoming, like returning back to your flat at 7AM after a night of partying, but with more meat on the bone than ‘Great Release’ and less smokey melodrama than of ‘New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down’, this homecoming is definitely the most fun.
4. Get Innocuous!
(Sound of Silver, 2007)
A song about how the gears of a city can grind away your edge, the way the machine-like bass finds its sharply punctuated tone and rhythm seems to envisage the sped-up movement of a metropolis like something from an Adam Curtis documentary. The Kraftwerk-inspired voices only add to this, neatly paired with Nancy Wang’s eerie yet super catchy vocal hook.
3. Someone Great
(Sound of Silver, 2007)
‘Someone Great’ fizzes and pops with so many little sonic nuts and bolts that altogether assemble into one of LCD Soundsystem’s most devastating songs. Supposedly dealing with the lost of Murphy’s friend and therapist, the song has so many little details like the phone ringing and nice-tasting coffee, pulling us into the immediate moment of his grief.
2. Dance Yrself Clean
(This Is Happening, 2010)
There’s something so brooding about ‘Dance Yrself Clean’, from the basic percussion ticking in anticipation like a clock, to the chant-like “Aah”s and deep but intermittent bass pulses. But before it gets too dark, a whimsical little ABBA pipe sound beckons us to keep going down the path. Then there is one of the most pleasing drops in musical history. For fear of being pretentious – we wouldn’t want that now, would we – Murphy merged two separate songs to create this bouncing anthem. In 2011, The Muppets took to a rooftop in Brighton for this unofficial music video…
1. All My Friends
(Sound of Silver, 2007)
The ultimate get-the-gang-together moment at a festival, ‘All My Friends’ was hailed by many as the song of 2007. LCD Soundsystem are masters of building and teasing song slowly until it swells until you can take no more; this song is a paragon of that, beginning on a couple of trembling piano keys before those crisp, rattle drums guide us to an out-of-body bittersweet euphoria.
It’s a quality Murphy has said he aimed to take from Joy Division’s ‘Transmission’, but it also reflects the message of ‘All My Friends’: the song will be over and we’ll be ten years older before you know it –tell your friends you love them now.
