|
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: audio_commentary, mp3s, music_commentary |
Thursday, September 24, 2009
7:42 PM
|
