Here’s hoping this becomes a new tradition — surprise releases from great bands that are actually pretty good! The first, what will become a seasonal classic for melancholics everywhere, is from a band that technically doesn’t even exist anymore: LCD Soundsystem. And the second is an unused theme for the James Bond film Spectre by Radiohead. First, here’s what LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy wrote to accompany “Christmas Will Break Your Heart”: so, there’s been this depressing christmas song i’d been singing to myself for the past 8 years, and every year i wouldn’t remember that i wanted to make it […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 25, 2015Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s LCD Soundsystem movie Shut Up and Play the Hits has a one-day-only release today through Oscilloscope Pictures (in partnership with TUGG). The following interview was conducted just prior to the film’s premiere earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Over LCD Soundsystem’s ten-year career, the band grew from early blog darlings to lauded indie stalwarts. After telegraphing the group’s demise years in advance, band-leader James Murphy officially disbanded LCD last April with a star-studded, marathon-length performance at Madison Square Garden. Now, less than a year later, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace present Shut Up […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jul 18, 2012Oscilloscope Pictures today announced a unique release strategy for Shut Up and Play the Hits, Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern’s documentary on the last days of LCD Soundsystem, which bowed at Sundance earlier this year. Instead of the usual platform release for a film like this, Shut Up and Play the Hits will open on July 18 at theaters around the United States — and end its theatrical run the same day. In short, this concert movie will, um, play the hits and shut up. (Is this the first time that a film’s title has inspired its release strategy?!) Oscilloscope already […]
by Nick Dawson on May 29, 2012Does the culture make the artist, or does the artist make the culture? Two Sundance documentaries — Shut Up And Play the Hits, which follows James Murphy through the last concert of his band LCD Soundsystem in 2010, and Under African Skies, Joe Berlinger’s history of Paul Simon’s seminal Graceland – might seem to be unlikely bedfellows. Both films are brilliantly executed portraits of musicians walking the tightrope of cultural relevance and personal expression. The differences between the two stories illustrate fundamental changes in our popular culture over the last 30 years. Both films seek to explore “a moment in […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Jan 27, 2012Over LCD Soundsystem’s ten-year career, the band grew from early blog darlings to lauded indie stalwarts. After telegraphing the group’s demise years in advance, band-leader James Murphy officially disbanded LCD last April with a star-studded, marathon-length performance at Madison Square Garden. Now, less than a year later, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace present Shut Up and Play the Hits, a documentary that follows Murphy and his band-mates in the run-up to and aftermath of their now-legendary final performance. If the film’s trailer is any indication, Shut up and Play the Hits will serve as a great encapsulation of the excitement, […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jan 24, 2012This trailer for the LCD Soundsystem movie looks fantastic! The band’s amazing, the show was great, and now there’s this movie… I’m glad it exists. (Click on the headline above if you don’t see the video embed.)
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 13, 2012Here are a few articles of interest I’ve stored in my Instapaper. There’s a new website for Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, and it takes something of a transmedia approach. Chuck Tryon explains: As you enter the website, it invites you to follow one of two forking paths, the father’s way or the mother’s way, while a haunting, almost mournful score plays in the background. Once you choose, you encounter a split screen with half the screen filled by a semi-circle of video clips and the other a white space with some cryptic text that evokes a moral parable. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2011I just figured out I can embed this… Their last NYC show. Wish I was there… but running this through my PS3 to my TV is not bad. (If you don’t see the video, click the headline above.) UPDATE: Sorry I didn’t see the show live; it was amazing. The live stream was surprisingly good, though. Here’s a clip — Arcade Fire guesting on backing vocals for “North American Scum.” SECOND UPDATE: Here’s the whole show. Thank you, LCD Soundsystem and Pitchfork.
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 2, 2011The new album hasn’t dropped yet, but this single has — at least on YouTube. To my ears it’s got kind of a Here Come the Warm Jets vibe. Meanwhile, Greenberg, which LCD’s James Murphy scored, is in theaters and its soundtrack is in the stores. It streams below.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2010