Sound Of Silver (studio album) by LCD Soundsystem

From planetneutral 02/07/2021 16:17

Unanticipated echoes of Talking Heads, but not quite as interesting in any facet.

From Boltzmann 12/10/2020 10:04

If you ask yourself "how come I like this album when I'm not really into electronic music", it's because this is barely electronic music. There are three songs that are genuinely electronic genres: "Get Innocuous!" (techno, and a rip-off of "Die Roboter" by Kraftwerk), "Someone Great" (techno, and the only song of the album I genuinely enjoy), and Sound of Silver (house, but only at some parts, which are the only parts I enjoy from the song, the rest contains a poor man's disco beat). The rest are just very sparse punk songs with some unnecessary, and hardly recognizable electronic sounds thrown in, as if they're ashamed to admit they use synths. Very rarely the synth sounds actually add something interesting to the song in a way similar to Brian Eno, like on "Us V Them", but it gets muffled in the background, and even the annoyingly preachy chant of "Us and them, over and over again" gets a more prominent place; the type of chant that only doesn't make me cringe if the message is simple like on Prince's outro on Controversy (the album), and even there I'm glad he kept it short.

So let's talk about the vocals now: it's shit. There is a fine line in new wave where it becomes rather charming how their vocals are so empty of decoration; James Murphy is not on this line. It (everything that isn't just spoken-word or chanting, of which I don't want to explain to anyone why there is no artistic value in) all sounds very try-hard to be something else, every scream sounds calculated, tempered, formulaic, even sometimes going back to old school rock 'n' roll.

And the same goes for the rest of the parts of the music (sometimes bordering on rip-offs as I noted already). Electronic music has simply moved on so much since Kraftwerk; it was adorable when Kraftwerk made very static compositions and funny bleep bloop noises, but in the '00s this doesn't fly anymore. That's not to say Kraftwerk were excused because they were limited in their equipment and lacking of a likeminded community which has tried everything already, I really think they pulled it off in some crazy way. Everytime I put on their music I am afraid my positive view of them will shatter and I will realize they weren't so great after all, but every time I am positively surprised. I digress, but in my defense, talking about Kraftwerk is just so much more interesting than this lame excuse for a band. Everything they do (the rock 'n' roll vocals, the kraftwerk-y or Eno-ish electronics, the punk aesthetic) has been done and better by people decades ago, which makes it rather shameful too really.

So lastly, is it good punk then? It's okay. Again, they follow the rules a bit too much. I think the electronic sounds are the only thing they got going for them to distinguish themselves, and the only excuse for critics to give what is actually just another indie punk album so much praise.

This is what everyone should've been doing in 2007.

From Timestarter 05/30/2020 01:10

Fav. Tracks: Someone Great, All My Friends.

Obviously a very good, very varied album. Very creative use of percussion sounds too. It's just not my type of thing. I loved the final song though.

From junodog4 12/08/2019 06:14

Fun fun fun

From mdbaxter 08/29/2019 15:19

I'm not the biggest fan of electronic music for some reason but I really enjoyed this album. I mostly enjoyed the non-electronic songs but I still like all of the other songs. The songwriting is pretty great on every song and it's showcased best on my (and BEA's) favorites "Someone Great", "All My Friends" and "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down". "All My Friends" in particular struck a chord with me. This album seems like it was made for someone in their 30s so maybe I'll grow to appreciate it even more eventually.

Favorite Tracks:New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

This was awesome.

Favorites: North American Scum, Us V Them.

Just getting a listen of this band and this album - thanks to shout outs on this website else I would never have come their way.
It is a great album from first listen for me. I am hearing loads of influences in there. The Bowie Eno reference I heard, on occasion his vocals are even Bowie Berlin era.
But I also hear Talking Heads in the more funky moments, even a bit of Prince in the music. I also hear the Killers, The Strokes, amongst others. It is their talent to bring all these sounds together into a coherent album and sound.
If the electro pop tunes had been out in the 80's they would have smashed anything then.
I like songs that build up and can be happy to have a repetitive droning sound or hook whilst the rest of the songs builds layer after layer.