#lcd soundsystem

[aeolianblues]

‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014, ‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014, ‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014, ‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014!

It’s not tumblr-core and it’s not Lana Del Ray or 2013 AM, it’s not #girl interrupted, it’s not Ethel Cain (she literally is an artist of our time, what are you on about.)

It was 2001 with the Strokes on the cover of the NME every 2 weeks, it was cabaret night and English poetry with the Libertines in 2002, it’s those red and blue military jackets, it was the fucking grease in Julian Casablancas’ hair, it’s ’cocaine was the banker’s drug’ quoth Alex Kapranos, it was Don't Go Back To Dalston and the heroin, it was red and black horizontal striped tops and tight black shirts as evening wear, it was Russell Lissak’s mop top and a full page interview with London hairdressers in the NME in 2005, it was Jack and Meg’s saturated red and white dresses, it was glued glitter on the cover of Santigold’s first album, it was the sleaze and the sex of CSS’s music, it was ‘cold light, hot night’, it was the anti-Bush and anti-war stances of the bands at the time, it was America by Razorlight, it was Popworld on telly and Simon Amstel being a little shit to musicians, it was Karen O defying death on stage nightly, it was throwing up in shitty nightclubs on god knows what drugs, it was the fucking danger knowing this could all collapse any second—and rightly, it should. It was the godawful egos at DFA, it was knowing that while you were lucky to be seeing these bands live, you’d fucking hate them if you had to spend even a minute in their individual company. It was Amy Winehouse telling the world to get the fuck out of her business, it was Leslie Feist and Peaches sharing a dilapidated flat above a sex shop in Toronto.

It was horrible camera flash and red-eye editing softwares and putting your feet by the warm, spinning fans of your computer while it whirred away and downloaded your albums in *checks* 46 more minutes. It was horrible, it was dirty, it was gritty, we all hated it and thought the 90s were the last time music was good and that nothing good had happened since 1997. It was garishly bright clothes we were all embarrassed of by 2011, it was multiple layers and leggings and asking your mum to cut the itchy tag on the back of your low rise jeans only for her to snip your back. It was bell bottoms at the start of the decade. It being thankful that by 2017, no one would dream of wearing low rises anymore, please please, please let them never come back.

It was faux nostalgic of the past itself. It was ‘please make sure baby you’ve got some colours in there’ in your clothes. It was moral panic over emos. It was wanting to escape into a better past that you could see was visibly impoverished in the present. It was watching your favourite programmes become less and less relevant on air. It was watching MTV decisively die a horrible death. It was watching important venues and nightclubs get bulldozed. It was watching the last regular broadcast of Top Of The Pops in 2006. It was seeing how the 2009 financial crisis most definitely put a stop to independent music in the western world for a decade, it was watching the rise of bedroom DIY and electronic music. It was seeing the phrase ‘SoundCloud rapper’ being coined. It was the rise of Disney pop. It was counter-culture Justin Bieber hatred. It was the MS paint meme of those tumblr girls thoroughly unimpressed by the guy.

It was not using the words ‘indie sleaze’ at all, in fact. That’s a retconned word. It was garage rock revival. It was ‘post-grunge’. We didn’t care what it was called, we hated it all the same. It was a lead into a decade of despair and nihilism, it was the last hurrah for the music industry before it splintered into a thousand little online ecosystems, it was the last time we had physical community and any shared pop cultural moments. It was Live8 2005. It was the same as it is now, and it was a time that’ll never happen again, for better and for worse.

But one thing is for sure: it was decisively dead by 2014. Santi and Karen O’s 2012 collab was its last hurrah and it was dead by Comedown Machine by the Strokes (2013). It has nothing to do with 2014.

[doctorcurdlejr]

killing it with close inspection, killing it can only make it worse, it sort of makes it breathe

[dershoimvik]

you're afraid of what you need buck and eddie, home.

[post-punk-author-anthony-day]

Goth -  Death in June, March Violets, Clan of Xymox, Christian Death, Southern Death Cult, Sisters of Mercy, Drab Majesty, Tropic of Cancer, 13th Chime, And Also the Trees, 

No Wave (Ice age, Sonic Youth) 

Darkwave - IAMTheShadow, this cold night, Tropic of Cancer, Nation of Language, Ritual Howls, A Projection, Topographies, Siglo XX, Bolshoi, Lust for Youth, VR Sex, A place to bury strangers 

[hollisdom]

is daft punk playing at your house?

[lcdsoundsystem]

LCD Soundsystem performing at New York's Bowery Ballroom on October 9, 2003

📸 Tim Soter

[galina]

I don’t usually post about gigs but this one was just unreal, still bathing in the light

[flirtingwithselfdestruction]

[realchloesevigny1]

Dance yrself clean in the studio 2010

[softxsounds]

what’s wrong with new york?

[hrdtoexplain]

Meet me in the Bathroom

[silmarillion-ways-to-die]

Wait, are we doing nine favorite albums?

[primordialsouppp]

Since TikTok is dead I’m pushing for a full blown tumblr revival, maybe I’ll be active here?? anyways here are some of the albums I’ve had on repeat lately—drop some recs for me :))

[titanebaby]

they would’ve loved the substance

[hollisdom]

do I think indie sleaze could make a full swing comeback in this political climate? yes, totally!

[sunburnacoustic]

For any Muse fans who might get frustrated about how the fandom seems to always be throwing a tantrum about new Muse songs and how much they dislike Muse's 'new directions', just a gentle assurance that the fandom has always been like this.

They were really not fond of Black Holes and Revelations when it came out, some of them didn't even believe Supermassive Black Hole was a real song. They thought it was a joke. Muse, their beloved metal-leaning hard rock band, going glitz, glam and electro? Ignoring the fact that their main man just built a whole synthesizer into his electric guitars (the XY Kaoss pad), Muse and electronic? Ignoring the arp synth on Bliss, Muse and electronic?

Supermassive Black Hole was the first single on BHAR, and the old fans were aghast. Hated it. Then when Twilight used the song and brought Muse to the attention of... well. Teenage girls, essentially, it again split the fandom into the old heads (the real, gritty rock fans, you hear me) and the airheaded dumb teenage girls that only knew them through Twilight and silly romance novels. (I hope you understand these aren't my words. It's just... fucking 2006. The 00s were horrible like that.)

They also hated Take A Bow. Despite the fact that Muse had been using the opening synth progression as an intro to Space Dementia live throughout the Absolution tour, they disliked the synths on it. They hated Invincible.

And just to balance things out, Muse in the meanwhile were having a blast: Matt doing his alien schtick in interviews, jetsetting across Europe from headline gigs and festivals to award shows, they occasionally got to take charter flights and stuff, and they were in an interesting place musically where their sound was expanding, taking inspiration from nightclub indie music like LCD Soundsystem and bussing with the Strokes (they've said Starlight was inspired by them), working up to playing some of the biggest arena and even stadium gigs of their lives. 2006 Reading Festival, their first Reading headline. Huge moment for Muse. 2007, two sold out nights at the 90,000 capacity new Wembley. All this is to say, if Muse hadn't made Black Holes the album they did, there's no way they'd be nearly as successful as they are today. So don't doubt it and don't feel bad for them! But the Muse fandom is passionate, and so you maybe heard the naysayers louder than you would with most band fandoms.

But were there detractors before Black Holes? Might surprise you, but yes! And I'm not talking about Pitchfork and the rest of the press!

This will make no sense in 2025's musical landscape and understanding of rock and guitar music, but fans hated Time Is Running Out. I've seen those old Muse messageboard threads, they did Not hold back. TIRO was a 'pop song', and so it was Bad. It was Muse selling out. Fans had heard quite a few of these songs well before release, and Muse were threatening to go 'more prog' on their third album, and it threw their OOS-loving fans a little. (Check out this interview from the archives with then-BBC Radio 1's Steve Lamacq for a sense of what was going on).

So don't worry about who hates Thought Contagion or whether fans inexplicably dislike Will Of The People, an album so classically Muse that I am forced to wonder whether the fans that dislike it and I are actually thinking about the same band when refer to them. It's been like this on The Resistance (god, they hated the symphonic bits, strings used to really rile up the anti-sentimental rock fandom. Riffs and RIFFS ONLY you hear me?), The 2nd Law got So Much Hate for Muse embracing electronic music (again, not new....) and working with Skrillex, it was the whole reason the 'back to basics, back to our rock roots' idea even popped into the band's head when going in to make Drones. Matt's talked about the well, fan pressure to sound a certain way on the song Pressure, and Simulation Theory itself got a lot of agitated fan responses.

The interesting thing with Muse is that despite it all, the reason why they are still such a widely loved band is that people come around to their albums. At the end of the day, it is fantastic music. Well written, incredibly forward-thinking and genre-blending. Fans' love for Muse keeps them giving the newer albums another chance, and you will often see this in most Muse Youtube comment sections (or other places), there are many comments about how their songs grew on fans. They like them after a few listens. It's just about trusting the band to be good at their job and make incredible music, and I can't give up on Musers despite all my above qualms because they do still have that love and trust. Don't worry about it.

Also, about BHAR specifically (and this is me citing some sources), someone asked about it on the Muse reddit a little while ago and it'll basically confirm what I just told you. Very interesting insight into the place rock music occupied in popular music at the time (in opposition to other genres, the rebellion genre if you will, as opposed to Just Another Popular Genre. That's a whole post in itself). Don't worry about it.