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 Post subject: Year In Review: LCD Soundsystem - 45:33 (21C)
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:19 am 
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http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/l ... m/4533.htm

LCD Soundsystem
45:33 Nike + Original Run (iTunes)
US release date: Oct. 2006
Rating: (A-)

James Murphy is a self-confessed “fat guy in a t-shirt doing all the singing”: why the hell is he composing a soundtrack for 45-minute jogs? The simple answer is because Nike asked him to, and he thought it’d be a good challenge, allowing him to do something akin to Manuel Gottesching’s E2-E4, a near-legendary piece of formative electronica that pulses and twists across a similar three-quarter-hour length, without descending into gimmick. Because a running soundtrack isn’t gimmicky. And neither is “Losing My Edge.”

Whatever. Nike “owns” 45:33 for the next six months, during which time you can only get it by downloading it from iTunes. After that DFA get it back somehow, presumably meaning that it’ll see a full release on vinyl and CD around April 2007, by which time we’ll all have gotten super-duper fit by running around with it on our iPods through the winter, yeah? Maybe.

Obviously there are moral issues involved in taking dollars from Nike for your “art”—a quick perusal around knowmore.org uncovers a litany of sweatshop horrors, human rights abuses, and other such distasteful big business activities—but DFA Records are already signed to major labels in most territories around the world, including EMI in the UK (a label I’ve taken checks from, so I can’t bitch about with any moral ire), and if you were that bothered about ethical consumerism you’d never buy a record or piece of technology connected in any way to Sony, which would make life pretty difficult indeed. And besides, hipster kids in All Stars bitching about Murphy’s ethics literally don’t have a foot to stand on: Nike bought Converse three years ago.

Anyway, when all is said and done, the question is this: is 45:33 any good, both as a soundtrack to stretching your quadriceps and as a 45-minute pseudo-mixtape expressing what LCD Soundsystem are? And the answer is, simply, yes to both.

It takes three minutes for us to even get a beat, presumably how long it takes Murphy to lace his sneakers and put his sweatbands on, but once that beat comes (accompanied by some choppy, jazzified house piano) it stays and it works you hard for the next half-hour, rising in intensity and BPM to a peak before allowing you to warm-down and get your heart rate back below 120 before it finishes.

Of course it’s not quite that simple, as Murphy rushes us through a seeming history of Chicago house, Italo, and straight-ahead discopunk. All the pat LCD Soundsystem sounds are present at one moment or another, plus some extras—there’s a surfeit of trumpet in the third quarter, for instance, which makes a pleasant addition to the rubber-band bass, delirious backing vocals, dirty hipster monologues, and sundry kinetic analogue squelchings that we’re more used to. Highlights include the house-driven piano and backing vox of the 3:00-9:00 minute section, the hyper-electro catchiness of 11:00-18:00, and the full-on frenetic punk charge after a pause for breath around 29:00. The last quarter or so winds you down after all the exertion, the BPM and surrounding chaos slowly falling to an ambient heartbeat that falls to Lance-Armstrong-in-the-bath levels for the final few minutes.

45:33 works both as exercise-soundtrack and discopunk-odyssey because James Murphy understands how to make people move on a basic, physical level. 45:33 fits a great legacy of music that is elongated and/or designed for a specific purpose—from Eno’s subdued Music for Airports to The Necks’ succinctly titled Sex. You can fuss and fret about its ontological origins as much as you like; the music itself is great.



Reviewed by: Nick Southall
Reviewed on: 2006-10-26


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:23 am 
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i still need to listen to this


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:37 am 
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WOW

We are so much better off when you have people like James Murphy making music. Never in my life would I think one 50 minute song make my top 20, this is so excellent that it will probably break into my top 10. Early next year we get a new album, by all accounts is another winner, and this will be out on CD according to what Nick Southall says in that stylus piece.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:49 am 
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This guy has crack Wrote:
i still need to listen to this

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:51 am 
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paladisiac Wrote:
This guy has crack Wrote:
i still need to listen to this


But probably won't.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:56 am 
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i think i turned it off about 15 minutes into it. i'll probably give it another try since i've been digging their new album.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 7:05 am 
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Top 12 or so. Sadly, it hasn't motivated me to exercise yet. Maybe after New Year's....

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:36 am 
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I actually work out with this record...I usually get about 35 minutes into the run and then switch it over to sosmething else...I'm not crazy about the length of the final part, it should have been shorter.

howeeeeever...I wear asics, and use a creative zen instead of an iPod (Nike apparently has a deal with apple)...take that Nike + Apple

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 9:16 am 
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Death To SantaClaus666 Wrote:
I actually work out with this record...I usually get about 35 minutes into the run and then switch it over to sosmething else...I'm not crazy about the length of the final part, it should have been shorter.

howeeeeever...I wear asics, and use a creative zen instead of an iPod (Nike apparently has a deal with apple)...take that Nike + Apple
i think that i've said it before, but that nike/ipod thing is great. and i wear brooks and keep the transmitter in the shoe wallet with my house key.


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