LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends"

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/download/47194-lcd-soundsystem-all-my-friends-live-in-manchester-england

And, contrary opinion: http://www.drownedinsound.com/release/view/10148

I almost always skip this song.

That DiS piece is really, really inept.

#1 song of the year.

The anguished vocal is not nearly anguished enough to garner much emotional connection
R
O
N
G

This is an amazingly good song.

I agree with you, Nick. Whoever wrote that DiS review missed the mark totally.

One grasps for more ways to describe the song than this potted account, but there really is little else going on.

One = you, and just because you're a bad writer doesn't mean there's nothing going on in the song, yo.

The anguished vocal is not nearly anguished enough to garner much emotional connection,

(A) No emotional connection? Do you not have a heart?
(B) If you want anguish, listen to nu-metal. As James Murphy once said in an interview, "There's no angst" in his music. That's not the point. It's about missing your friends, not totally freaking out in pain or anything.

and the DFA label has seen about six billion more readily danceable tunes released into the world than this one.

What in the world is his point? Oh no, a song is not danceable, that means it's shite.

http://stylusmagazine.com/reviews/lcd-soundsystem/the-sound-of-silver.htm

Back-to-back at the center of the album are the two best songs Murphy’s ever been involved in: the ruminative, regret-loaded acid-pads of “Someone Great” and the accelerant joie de vivre of “All My Friends.” The former, a meticulously-crafted electro groove with a lyric about a necessarily unidentified personal loss, carries an unexpectedly profound sadness. Thankfully it’s countered by the latter, where excitable pianos and an incessant Krautrock groove build a rose-tinted but realistic reminiscence as a greying hipster looks back on his irreclaimable youth and decides against regret. No one else working this sonic territory has anywhere near this emotional depth.

Sonically, it / they / this whole album is also mixed and mastered absolutely brilliantly - which makes the pianos in AMF not just good but AMAZING.

Amen, Nick, Amen. See, you actually describe how the song works whereas he doesn't. Also, I still have no idea how someone can listen to this and say, "Yeah, this has no emotion in it." Just because he's not screaming like Win Butler (and I like the Arcade Fire), doesn't mean it's not "emotional." There are more emotions than angst angst angst.

Also: In case anyone is interested, here's that James Murphy interview I paraphrased in my above post; it's pretty fantastic (and long):

http://indieinterviews.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=34058

Yeah, production-wise this album is incredible. It's not over-compressed at all, and you can really hear every little sound and how they interact with each other. I just want to play it again and again.

To quote Mark Pytlik's Pitchfork review, which I totes agree with:

He's an analog obsessive with a general aversion to software, and Sound of Silver reflects that. Far removed from the compressed, trebly, and overmastered paradigm that's gripped electronic music in the last decade, Sound of Silver sounds deep, spacious, and full-blooded. (Like, um, an old rock record.) It's an absolute joy to listen to, for every possible reason, not the least of which is because, these days, those epiphanies feel like they're coming fewer and farther between.

"That DiS piece is really, really inept"

qft

There are a lot of ways that stasis/minimalism work incredibly well on this album. I don't think "All My Friends" is one of them, probably because I find that piano intensely annoying.

If I thought that song was supposed to be "anguished" I wouldn't like it for a second.

I love John Cale's cover version as much/more than the original.

HI DERE that's a much better reason for not liking the song than the ones given in that DiS review.

There are a lot of ways that stasis/minimalism work incredibly well on this album. I don't think "All My Friends" is one of them, probably because I find that piano intensely annoying.

See, I find that piano almost unbearably exciting...

The piano bit (along with the drums) is the driving force of the song.

I feel bad for the dude in the video I posted above who has to hit the same notes on the piano for six plus minutes tho.

Piano is like Terry Riley! A+

As sam500 just noted on the "Year-End Critics' Polls '07" thread:

As voted by the Guardian's music writers

Friday December 7, 2007
The Guardian

1 LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver . . .

They really blew it with the video, huh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2V_ZT-nyOs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x07oIcCERtM

Something about the lyrics/vocals really bothers me. I think it sounds like he's trying too hard to be poignant--it doesn't connect with me. I preferred it when LCD Soundsystem made tracks rather than songs, if that makes any sense.

See I think this is a track, rather than a song. But it is also a song... and I don't think he's trying too hard for poignant, certainly not compared to a lot of mainstream sop-rock. The devil's in the details, the little bits I don't understand, the lyrics that are so personal as to be impenetrable.

The devil's in the details, the little bits I don't understand, the lyrics that are so personal as to be impenetrable.

I see what you mean by this but more in relation to "Someone Great" than "All My Friends" (but, even there, I like what he did with "Someone Great" on 45'33" more than Sound of Silver).

(but, even there, I like what he did with "Someone Great" on 45'33" more than Sound of Silver).

...left off the vocal track?

Like the lyric about "we check the charts / and start to figure it out"; Emma took that as meaning his partner was pregnant, I took it to mean they'd been out on a Sunday partying, got home, stuck Teletext on and realised they'd had a hit single / album or something. Not sure why...

...left off the vocal track?

Exactly!

Teletext?

"and for those of you who still think we're from england we're not, no."

Track of the Year also in, of all places 'MOJO'. I didn't think they even DID a track of the year usually.

I took it to mean they'd been out on a Sunday partying, got home, stuck Teletext on and realised they'd had a hit single / album or something.

Funny you should say that. Part of me wonders if James Murphy needs to stop worrying about the charts in order for me to regain interest (which goes back to the whole tracks vs. songs thing).

I think he DID with this album, is the irony; I think he tried too hard with the first full album as LCD, mastered it a bit aggressively, deliberately wrote a couple of 'singles' (the Daft Punk one! the Beatles one!).

Agreed that this is a fine fine song. It reminds me in parts of a song that Secret Machines may have written. It has that same feel to it.

first two tracks of "ten silver drops" >>>>>>>>>>>> this song

See? No heart.

I almost always skip this song.

-- HI DERE, Friday, 7 December 2007 14:43 (2 hours ago) Link

The instant I heard those piano chords hammering out I knew it was the song for me.

Yeah, this is kindof a classic single already.

I like this song, though for a long time I thought he should have gone for a high note ("if I could see all my friends to-NIIIIIIIIIGHT") to really make it climax. BONO would have, and they're aping the U2 side of Eno-rock pretty strongly here.

"Someone Great" affects me a lot more musically and lyrically.

the video for 'someone great' is great!

Yeah but the edit sucks

what nick said, really.

I can't imagine "Someone Great" without the vocal track! That's what makes the song sublime, especially when its motion differs from the glockenspiel line underneath it.

Have you heard 45'33"?

it's nowhere near as good, though, is it?

I haven't heard 45'33", but if one of the things I like so much about "Something Great" is the interplay between the vocal line and the glockenspiel and the vocal line isn't there...

That DiS review is really flat but this sentence seems OTM to me: 'All My Friends' is by no means devoid of enjoyable features, but it's hard to believe that anyone would listen to this and think it was actually finished.

ok what?

I don't feel like I'm listening to a completed song when I listen to it. I want it to do something else or go somewhere else, and it never does, and instead it rides that stupid annoying piano ad infinitum and I find it irritating.

You should still check it out, Hi Dere. It's my favorite thing he's done since his early singles.

i understand the "i don't like that it's just the piano" point, but that's obviously intentionally done for effect so i wouldn't call it unfinished. that would be like saying you think some folk song is "unfinished" because it's only played on just a banjo.

he also builds quite a bit of tension as the song progresses, the little spare drum hits speed up and get a little louder as do the piano i think. idk i wasn't in love w/ it hte first 3 or 4 times i heard it, but the word unfinished never crossed my mind.

I like,a LOT, that there's no obvious orgasm point within the song.

"all my friends" >> "someone great"
bassline in "someone great" >> sound of silver

riiiight.

More praise: http://socialconsumer.com/2007/11/20/who-gives-a-shit-all-my-friends/

I love this song to death. I generally try to get people to watch the video first just cuz I think the edited version is a lot more accessible to first-time listeners. I love the long build-up at the beginning, but I can see how people would get bored/annoyed with that piano part. even in its truncated form, it's still better than 99% of the music I've heard this year.

Hi Dere, do you think "Temptation" sounds unfinished? Because these songs seem similar to me in how they build up without an obvious climax.

also, while we're on the subject of this album, Gui Boratto - "Beautiful Life" --> "Someone Great" --> live version of "Naive Melody" from Stop Making Sense = amazingness. I have played this exact same series of songs multiple times on my radio show and I don't even feel guilty about it.

I always took "check the charts" to mean like an obsessive guy who's more concerned about succeeding at his life goals (in this case, music) than anything. So he unconsciously reduces his freinds and relationships to a series of charts.

Piano seems Mobius-inspired, but that would've been an arpeggio... Seems like Cluster as dance-rock (plus vocals that manage to be listenable despite the ineptness)

is by no means devoid of enjoyable features, but it's hard to believe that anyone would listen to this and think it was actually finished.

I'm gonna go ahead and be mr. heretic/iconoclast dick here and say that this kind of sums up how I feel about the whole album. Even the parts that sound like he just took the best bits from the first one and added a couple more noises and a different vocal line.

very good song.
after like 20-30 times of listening to it - i can't stand it now.
but after some rest, i might like it again

than again, 99 of the songs are like this for me

Hi Dere, do you think "Temptation" sounds unfinished? Because these songs seem similar to me in how they build up without an obvious climax.

Both "Temptation" and "All My Friends" have obvious climaxes ("Thoughts from above..." vs "You drop the first ten years..."), IMO. "Temptation" has a lot more going on in it terms of ebb and flow, mostly because it isn't wholly based on a minimalist song construction (ie, one very static riff repeated with very little variation for the entire duration of the song); rather, it's very much an intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-outro song that only contravenes traditional pop construction in how long it is.

I'm gonna go ahead and be mr. heretic/iconoclast dick here and say that this kind of sums up how I feel about the whole album. Even the parts that sound like he just took the best bits from the first one and added a couple more noises and a different vocal line.

A lot of the album is like this; it's just that the four songs where it really works ("Get Innocuous!" "North American Scum", "Someone Great", "Sound Of Silver") are so ridiculously phenomenal in their execution that it doesn't really matter to me that I find the remaining five songs fair to forgettable.

(Actually the climax to "AMF" is the bit right before "If I could see all my friends tonight" at the end but still, recognizable climax for me.)

ok, then I don't understand your unfinished comment, because if the song has a climax, then doesn't it "go somewhere"?

I confess find the song really emotionally moving and so I actually don't hear things others have found annoying, notably the piano except at the start and end of the song.

For me the real climax begins at the line: "With a face like a dad . . ."

Leaving the "else" off of "go somewhere else" has a non-trivial impact on the meaning of what I wrote.

ok right, so basically the song bores you. I understand now, can't help you there.

Yeah, I don't think there's anything to help!

i just kind of fucking hate the lyrics and song, is all, but an instrumental would be bit boring.

this song is awesome

i think the climax is on the 3,845th snare crack.

sure it's not the downbeat before?

Here come all the "The song that defines Generation Y (or "Generation Why!?"?), The Blogoverse, Internet 2.0" articles that will end up subtly tainting my appreciation of the song.

In a post 9-11 world, where are all our friends tonight?

My friends are coming to pick me up to see "The Golden Compass".

I just turned down an offer to see it.

I was thinking about this song on the train just earlier. I was tapping the rhythm of the pianos to myself. I think I like the idea of this song far more than the song itself. That piano rhythm is vital, urgent, addictive, but the song itself doesn't do enough IMO. The keyboards following the vocals I find to be irritating. The lyrical sentiments are spot-on though.

haha no seriously I hadn't listened to this track in probably months and now I'm going over for 3x in a row, what are you backslappers talking about? I think Interpol already covered this song, it's by The Jam

I mean, I just don't get what's so special about it
I don't know. I'm not really emo, I'm more
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/86/Mr._Grumpy.jpg/200px-Mr._Grumpy.jpg

I know where my friends are, they're fucking at home, like they know how (see: The Streets)

(Idolator OTM re: "Us v Them" >>>>>>>>> "All My Friends". This is how you do it, folks.)

Naw, not quite, but "Get Innocuous" >>>>>>>>> "All My Friends."

^^^^^ DUH

"Get Innocuous" >>>>>>>>>> everything on the album except "Someone Great", which it =.

Get Innocuous just makes me want to listen to Telex though.

in a "wait why am I settling for this" fashion

you can normalize don't it make you feel alive

Do Telex sound like soul-eating robots? (Honest question.)

"get innocuous" is my favorite from the lp, too. if every song on this album is simultaneously an indictment of what it celebrates, it is certainly the pinnacle.

Here is where I get controversialist: "NYILYBYBMD" >>>>>>>>>> "All My Friends"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFWdobNIcPQ

both "get innocuous" and "us v. them" are good but are in no way better than "all my friends". the live version of "us v. them" is 100 times better than on the album.

"Someone Great" and "Us V. Them" are my favorites. I don't really "get" "All My Friends", I find it a little grating.

also, "North American Scum" is deeply annoying.

no it isn't

^^^ and "Time to Get Away", too. I would skip them if not for the fact that going straight from "Get Innocuous" to "Someone Great" just doesn't work for whatever reasons. xp

^ uh, yes it does, I do that all the time when I don't feel like hearing "North American Scum" (which is my least favorite of the awesome songs on this album)

I much prefer when these guys do stuff like 45:33. Sounds of Silver just doesn't cut it for me.

"Hippie Priest Burn Out" is also a great track.

"time to get away" bothered me the first few times because i always anticipated that guitar line finally falling over the edge into a solo, but i love it now. really sneering.

"north american scum" is one of my 3 least fave songs on the album.

"sneering" is definitely an appropriate descriptor for the chunk of the album I dislike.

"freak out/starry eyes also awesome awesome.

OTM

xp: OTM

40 year-old men dig music by 40 year-old men.

Jesus.

"freak out/starry eyes also awesome awesome.

-- J0rdan S., Sunday, December 16, 2007 1:21 PM (Sunday, December 16, 2007 1:21 PM) Bookmark Link

OTM

xp: OTM

-- The Reverend, Sunday, December 16, 2007 1:25 PM (Sunday, December 16, 2007 1:25 PM) Bookmark Link

40 year-old men dig music by 40 year-old men.

Jesus.

-- PhilK, Sunday, December 16, 2007 2:11 PM (Sunday, December 16, 2007 2:11 PM) Bookmark Link

i've listend to it again today.
i still think it's a great song, till one minute before closure,where he starts "singing" the lyrics in a nonstop way, which is kinda little annoying.
i also think that the fact that john cale and frenz ferdinand made covers for it really fast, rises the points for it being the song of 2007 for lots of people/music critics.

Pitchfork's track of the year.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/47681-staff-list-top-100-tracks-of-2007/page_10

"someone great" is better

I like the song a lot, think it's about the 6th best song on the album, and have played the Franz Ferdinand cover more than any other track this year.

Dan P, you should really hear the FF version. It slays.

New cover up on CokeMachineGlow!

http://cokemachineglow.com/songs/index.html

" I don't know what credibility I individually have, but believe me when I say that I am not just saying this: Main Drag's "All My Friends" cover is better than the original. And, as you and me and all our friends know, the original was pretty fucking great, an instant classic that James Murphy himself realized was a little too good for LCD Soundsystem, which is why he poached it out to all his friends in hopes that one of them could turn out the definitive version. None of them did. Franz Ferdinand owes the song an apology."

the singer on ^^^that cover^^^ should be forcefed a steady diet of molten lava.

i'd rather have tiny tim sing it

(And this is where I say "North American Scum" is the best song on the album kthxbye.)

thanks cokemachine glow! awesome.

That DiS piece is really, really inept.

tru fax.

(And this is where I say "North American Scum" is the best song on the album kthxbye.)

ned otm. as are the "temptation" references above. i like "all my friends" but it mostly makes me want to hear new order. (actually lots of this album makes me want to hear other things.)

("here we go like a sales force into the night" is a nice line.)

I predicted the Pitchfork #1 like 6 months ago.

he needs to stop singing on his tunes, then maybe he'd be ok.

They should make a new video in honor of the end-of-year attention. Something along the lines of "Where The Streets Have No Name," the band playing on a Williamsburg rooftop, Murphy standing proudly on the edge with a mic while young hipsters clog the streets, cutaways of a bum getting his groove on, cops on walkie talkies, news cameras, etc. Not that the vocal or the guitar are really up to U2 levels of crystalline grandiosity, but people seem to be rewarding the attempt.

lol

he needs to stop singing on his tunes

i like his singing. i was trying to think the other day of current white male vocalists i really like and he was one who came to mind.

Yeah, now it's all his non-singing (vocal) tunes that annoy me.

kives1985 (6 hours ago)
He's fatter than I thought he would be. Kind of ruins the music for me.:)

actually lots of this album makes me want to hear other things

I've grown to assume that all the tracks that DON'T make me want to listen to an "original version" are that way because I haven't heard the song he ripped off yet. Need to invest in some more motorik krautrock I think

and da croupier OTM, OTM, all over the place

or perhaps someone should do a "cover" of AMF with bono's lyrics

"Get Innocuous" >>>>>>>>>> everything on the album except "Someone Great", which it =.

-- HI DERE, Sunday, December 16, 2007 6:06 PM

OTMFM.

this album = overhyped beyond fucking belief

His singing sounds like The Killers on this ffs....so much weaker than the best stuff on the record... 'Get Innocuous'.

North American Scum = Homosapien

just listen to them one aftehr oether and your mind iwll be blllllown man.

this album = overhyped beyond fucking belief

very true

The music's not bad, but it's just fun to hate this guy - he's a dreary aging hipster loved by other dreary aging hipsters. The lyrics on "New York I Love You" read like he ripped it off the comments section on Curbed.com.

his voice, wtf

that fella from hot chip as well.

do people enjoy listening to fucking drips?

he's a dreary aging hipster loved by other dreary aging hipsters.

You've just defined ILM, pops. Congratulations!

I don't hate on this guy, his first record was basically awesome

North American Scum = Homosapien

-- burt_stanton, Saturday, December 22, 2007 7:55 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i knew i recognized it from somewhere!

i like this album a lot though.

though all my friends is my least favorite song on it

after the new york one

that cover that cokemachine posted is LOL

with a few key exceptions this may be the rongest thread in ilm history.

xpost

i'm really starting to be convinced lcd soundsystem should never be covered or remixed

Any idea who the backing band was on John Cale's cover?

where's galkin

this song is gr8, btw

Tracklisting:
A John Cale All My Friends (John Cale Version) (7:39)
Bass - James Murphy
Drums, Percussion - Michael Jerome
Guitar - David Levitta*
Producer, Vocals, Guitar (Rhythm), Viola, Keyboards, Sampler - John Cale
Programmed By, Sampler - Robin Lynn
Recorded By, Mixed By - Mickey Petralia