Personal Anchor
If you ask me to describe any artist, I'll usually start with where I was when I heard something of theirs that made me just go down a rabbit hole. For :contentReference[oaicite:0], it was my dad's iPod that he gave me preloaded with a bunch of music. For :contentReference[oaicite:1], it was my 9th grade internship when I played Dark Side of the Moon everyday I would get on the public bus on my way to the office and Money would play as I exited. For :contentReference[oaicite:2], it was even more personal than that.
Athens Discovery
I was on my third leg of my first ever solo trip on the way to Athens, Greece. I had just landed in Athens, and my phone was overheating randomly and as I entered my Uber to the hotel, I started hearing something I'd never heard before. I checked my phone, and it was a song called Someone Great, by a band I clearly recognized. I was perplexed - with how mixed bag my Spotify was being, where I was listening to songs that I've heard a million times, it threw me a gem. The rest of the trip I just went through their entire discography and became a huge fan of their work, and learned how they actually came to be.
Intro
There's something that is fundamentally crazy about this band. Their first song, Losing my Edge, was released in 2002 and entire eight minutes long. Like every song it had a story, and this one was about being completely washed; talking about aging, insecurities, and it somehow also felt like a rant about all of it - but it made them a name.
James Murphy
At the center of this was James Murphy, who was 32 at the time. He didn't fit the mold of what you'd think of when you thought Indie band from Brooklyn. But that might be why he became such a recognizable figure in the early 2000s music scene. When you're brutally honest and self-aware, sometimes you just attract the right crowd in music.
Culture Clash
Before LCD, there was a "Berlin Wall" between the Dance and Indie bands. You could be one but you couldn't be the other, and it divided fans too. Murphy tore down that wall and the way he did it was just insanity to say the least.
DFA Records, which was co-founded by Murphy himself was a space that built a space which that hybrid sound was welcomed. Bands that leaned into both worlds But more than that, DFA Records was almost a ground-zero for house music, with LCD at the forefront of this discovery. A messy, unpolished band which had begun a merge of genres.
The Blog Era
That "Blog" era of Indie music has mostly disappeared. Discovering bands like LCD isn't as personal, but some of the music that had come out of that era has lasted till this day.
Even if you don't realize it, you've most likely heard some of the songs LCD Soundsystem has made. Songs like All my Friends, I Can Change, and Dance Yrself Clean still show up at parties and playlists, all the same.
These songs and this genre works because it taps into to something universal: the awareness that the moment you're in is already slipping away, even while you're still inside it.
Their Ending (Kinda)
In 2011, the band was beginning to unwind and Murphy did what he wanted to. He tried to kill the band and give it a proper send off. Then in Madison Square Garden, after a concert that was four straight hours, the band closed their doors... almost.
In 2015, they release "Christmas Will Break Your Heart" and then announced that a new album would be coming soon. In 2017, they dropped yet another piece of cultural significance, the album American Dream. The album shared the themes of morality and aging, with all that comes with it.
Back to Athens
Getting back to Athens, there's just something that happened in that Uber where I realized that there was so much to the music I just happen to know and the bands I didn't realize had such a rich and cultural background. It sounded like it was almost the backdrop of my trip to Athens, and I hope that I continue to discover bands like them and increase my knowledge of things like this.
Closing
I hope you enjoyed reading this, if you have anything you'd like to add or say, comments are below!
-Keshav