LCD Soundsystem: “This is Happening”

Alright, folks. This right here is where it’s at. The genre bending, angst driven James Murphy is back with his third and supposedly final installment of music made under the moniker of LCD Soundsystem, and I’m going to have to go ahead and insist that you cop it. If you, like me, were kinda nonplussed by the album’s single, “Drunk Girls,” don’t stop there. It’s the record’s only song that clocks in at under six minutes; it had to be the single. And it’s a nice little party jam, but it just doesn’t quite contain the same depth that many of the record’s other songs so wondrously share.

So many projects that seek to combine synthesizers with live instrumentation and vocals come off as clumsy at best. Not this. While his first album was impressive, each subsequent effort has seen Murphy grow by leaps and bounds as an artist. And now, it seems that he has finally and fully arrived. “This is Happening” will have you sitting in traffic and singing along at the top of your lungs, and simply not giving a fuck about the teenage girls in the next car who are pointing at you and laughing their asses off. It’s too rock to be techno, too punk to be pop, and too electronic for your grandma to listen to. Like so much good house and techno music, these are songs that start with a simple concept, a quiet tension if you will, and then build to an electrifying crescendo. And just when you feel like a song is getting too repetitive, here come some bongos, or a banging bass line, or some synthesized weirdness to hook you back in. Basically, if you find yourself feeling bored at any point while listening to this album, I have good news for you: congratulations, you are now a grandma!

Okay, enough about grandmas, already. “This is Happening” is the type of record that makes me want to give up making music altogether because I know that mine could never measure up. How could it? At the end of the day, Murphy has carved out a nice little niche for himself in this scene we call music, but isn’t content to stay stagnant and put out variations of the same album again and again. We have a man who may not yet have found comfort inside his skin, but sure as shit knows how to make music that matters. Well, Mr. Murphy, if the whole tortured artiste thing is what’s lead to “This is Happening,” then I say, stay jaded, dude; you wear it well.

Mark my words, kids: this record will end up on many a 2010 top ten list—maybe even your grandma’s. Ha!