not a bad week for releases, then. first, nearly four decades after its coked-out blues buzz crawled out of a basement in villa nellcôte, perhaps the greatest rock ‘n’ roll record ever in the history of the universe gets reissued. plus, there’re 10 bonus tracks that purists are griping over (see the comments section in the article) but whatevs – i’m salivating over this one. i want gram parson’s spoon though!
i was wondering how pitchfork would rate exile (yes, these thoughts actually occur to me…). lo and behold, they’ve given it the good ol’ 10-spot. but don’t let that scare you off.
then there’s mr. James Murphy, pictured above, who just happened to put out two of the past decade’s best discs. now, his third offering as lcd soundsystem – this is happening – is out and once again, it’s getting rave reviews.
the pitchfork review quotes a curious line from murphy: “I spent my whole life wanting to be cool… but I’ve come to realize that coolness doesn’t exist the way I once assumed.”
now normally, if someone told me they’d spent their whole life wanting to be cool, i’d probably run for the hills. and really, lcd’s pop-culture mining cachet and knowing winks make me almost want to not like the band. but i simply can’t argue with the output – two stunningly good albums, and hopefully another one to complete the triumvirate.
now where’s that new mbv album?
Murphy’s obsession with cool undermines his admittedly great tunes. So evident is his need to be hip that it makes it impossible to focus fully on the music. His pretentiousness invades all his work. It’s like the musical equivalent of a middle aged accountant buying a Harley. And when he tries to be meaningful any profundity is eroded by his determination to be wedded to the superficial. So when you listen to a song like “New York I Love You” you don’t think it heartfelt, you think “ah, yes, that’s Lou Reed isn’t it?”. He wears his insincerity on his sleeve, at least.