LCD Soundsystem-This Is Happening

Apparently no one is going to say this, but this album kind of blows.

I mean, it's got its highlights, but for some inexplicable reason the press is going wild and giving it absurdly high scores. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the fact that the dude is the same age as most of these writers and is still making what appears to be "hip" music. Whatever. All I know is that I'm not getting it AT ALL.

I like Sound Of Silver quite a bit. Sure, it sounded derivative or whatever, but the songs that really work (Get Innocuous, Someone Great, All My Friends) sounded fresh enough that it seemed as if he had moved on from his influences and created something that was entirely his own. I'm not getting that vibe from this album. Things sound like a retread. Things sound as if on cruise control.

All I Want sounds like Bowie's Heroes. Which is good, right? Cause Heroes is an amazing song, you know? Well, it is. This is not. There's the underpinning sadness that popped up in Someone Great and All My Friends, but it doesn't make the same kind of impact. Maybe because it just builds up to some annoying synths being laid over the repeating Heroes riff.

Drunk Girls is terrible. It sounds as if he wanted to write a dumb frat boy anthem--but with IRONY!!! Except... you're still trying to write a dumb frat boy anthem.

Pow Pow and One Touch are pretty much retooled versions of songs released on prior albums, but not nearly as well executed and sounding mostly like 16 minutes of filler. You Wanted A Hit is a blatant f-you to the record company or something, which immediately turns me off. Plus it just goes on for 9 minutes without really doing anything interesting (maybe that was the point... how provocative).

I think what I'm getting at is that the album feels LONG and not nearly as inspired as the previous album. There are redeeming moments, but it's just that the songs that I would deem legitimately great (Home) or near-great (Dance Yrself Clean) bookend the album, which means it's a tough slog between the two songs. I Can Change has a nice chorus, but the NES-esque synths prevent from really connecting with me.

But about the two songs I really enjoy: Dance Yrself Clean is a great opener, starting with this great minimalistic groove before the synths take over, which along with the vocals actually transforms the song this desperate and plaintive giant. The only negative is that it returns to the minimalism of the first section around the six minute mark, which I thought made a great ending. But then the synths come back... which is OK, but you know. A bit excessive.

Home sounds like the followup to All My Friends, except with a warm and comforting vibe (which I guess is fitting for a song called "Home"...) that sounds so amazingly refreshing after about 6 songs I feel for all intents and purposes middle-of-the-road about. So maybe that's the reason why I like it so much.

Here are some videos to make up for the fact that I wrote this at a way too late hour: