about me


recent thought / activity


     

     



     

    See the full list at LibraryThing
     


    audio



     
     

     

    aught music: 2005: "losing my edge" by lcd soundsystem

    I've already mentioned the fact that I thought a lot, in 2005, about being an aging music fan. And part of this may have been because 2005 marked the release of the best song ever written about being an aging music fan: LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge."

    I'm losing my edge

    To all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin

    I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets

    and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties

    The early portion of the song is a gauntlet of trenchant observation and self-lacerating humor: no music fan of my generation will pass through without it landing at least one palpable hit. But the song's best passage comes around the 5:45 mark, when James Murphy begins racing through a roll-call of "relevant" bands. It's as simple as a grocery list, but no other gesture this decade has more truly evoked what it feels like to be a music fan in the contemporary world: the terrifying sublimity that comes from having your very identity bound up in efforts to attain mastery over a spectrum of cultural material that is, for all practical purposes, infinite.

    This Heat
    Pere Ubu
    Outsiders
    Nation of Ulysses
    Mars
    The Trojans
    The Black Dice
    Todd Terry
    the Germs
    Section 25
    Althea and Donna
    Sexual Harrassment
    a-ha
    Pere Ubu
    Dorothy Ashby
    PIL
    the Fania All-Stars
    the Bar-Kays
    the Human League
    the Normal
    Lou Reed
    Scott Walker
    Monks
    Niagra
    Joy Division
    Lower 48
    the Association
    Sun Ra
    Scientists
    Royal Trux
    10cc
    Eric B. and Rakim
    Index
    Basic Channel
    Soulsonic Force
    Juan Atkins
    David Axelrod
    Electric Prunes
    Gil! Scott! Heron!
    the Slits
    Faust
    Mantronix
    Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines
    the Swans
    the Soft Cell
    the Sonics
    the Sonics
    the Sonics
    the Sonics....

    Listen: LCD Soundsystem >> "Losing My Edge"

    Labels: , ,

     

    Thursday, September 24, 2009
    8:42 PM

     

    Comments: Post a Comment


     
         

     
         

    2011 archive >>

    2010 >>

    2009 >>

    2008 >>

    2007 >>

    2006 >>

    2005 >>

    2004 >>

    2003 >>

    2002 >>

    rss (xml)