American Dream

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James Murphy has always made things difficult for himself. By building a music career around the meta-narrative of being someone <i>knowingly</i> having a music career, every move he made was subject to scrutiny beyond that of a mere musician. Murphy painted himself into a corner—as did an artist from a previous generation: David Bowie. So it’s almost unbelievable that, before his death in 2016, Bowie told Murphy it was OK for the LCD Soundsystem mastermind to reform the band a mere five years after its much ballyhooed “final show” at Madison Square Garden. Following his mentor’s advice, LCD played its first reunion show not long afterward. But fans would have to wait until 2017 for LCD’s comeback album, <i>american dream</i>. By then, Murphy had lost several musical heroe, including Bowie, Leonard Cohen, and Alan Vega of Suicide (a band name-checked on the first LCD song, “Losing My Edge”). When <i>american dream</i> was finally released, Murphy told interviewers that he’d imagined Cohen doing a “spoken word bit” on the song “Black Screen” (ostensibly a tribute to Bowie) mere days before the 82-year-old Cohen’s passing. Clearly, time was slipping away. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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