I love this album but I've never been quite sure what to make of it. I appreciate that there are few artists whose work doesn't expose at least a little of their influences, but there's a point at which influence crosses over into homage, postmodernism, or just plain chicken-in-a-basket summer season impersonation. Stereolab, for obvious example, almost fall into this latter category as the Showaddywaddy of krautrock, and yet they just about get away with it by virtue of the Billy Childish defence, namely that if it still works then you can still use it.
LCD Soundsystem are, or at least were, the same sort of deal, but stealing down the midnight stairs for a secret swig of populist postpunk lemonade; and 1978 was, after all, a very good year. There's something almost willful about it, I suppose, but maybe it's no different to the fact of some people still playing the blues on a knackered guitar, and occasionally there will be one guy who does it really, really well. Here we have a dry, unfussy production seemingly inspired by late seventies disco, just before programmable beat boxes came in, electronic instruments played manually, a live sound, syndrums pew-pew-pewing all over the chorus, and long grooves based around riffs and catchphrases - mostly stuff which became subject to a degree of sneering during the rise of haircuts and sampling technology. LCD Soundsystem, however, showed that you could do something of worth with such neglected tools, and something which sounded fresh as fuck. The thing is, he - or possibly they - went even further, releasing a debut which could almost be a compilation. There are snatches of seventies metal, Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up which might be a lost Beatles demo, Disco Infiltrator which probably should have been on Remain in Light, Great Release which sounds like something from one of Eno's first couple of solo records, and then Mark E. Smith vocalising for disco-era Blondie on the rest. It's only because the music is so fucking good that you don't notice this weirdly eclectic skipping from one genre to another, and the music is so good because I guess LCD Soundsystem don't give a shit.
No-one remembers the cod reggae track on that Whitehouse album or Elvis Costello's brief excursion into techstep because they never happened, because most artists tend to stick to a furrow, or at least few artists commit the musical equivalent of a muscle spasm depositing three unexpected minutes of New Orleans bounce halfway through side two of a Ramones album.
Why not, we might ask? Truthfully, while it's nice to know what you're getting, and there's a certain virtue to variations on an established theme because no-one likes inconsistency, isn't it all just a little bit affected? Isn't it all just a little like those who refuse to allow themselves to enjoy anything outside whatever mileau they have established as the sum of their personalities, whether it be Psychic TV, rockabilly, or whatever? Isn't all this denial a little bit Oliver Cromwell, a bit like being at fucking school? Anyone remember that Lustmord album with the riotous pub rock knees up* as the first track on side two? Me fucking neither.
Anyway, I wonder if this album is therefore a deliberate flouting of some unspoken cooler than thou etiquette - flinging it all around with mad abandon simply because you can and it's fun. I also wonder if I've been thinking about this one too much, because it actually doesn't entirely sound like a compilation, despite the absurd range, with all tracks achieving a sort of unity through shared production, instrumentation, general spirit and so on. It's not karaoke, just great disco as you've either never heard it, or hadn't heard it for a while; or it was as of fifteen years ago.
It's not - ugh - "retro cool" either.
Piss off.
*: Conversely I draw the reader's attention to Wreckless Eric's weird electronic album, Bungalow Hi, which exists because Wreckless Eric was, is, and will forever remain artistically superior to the majority of his contemporaries.
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