The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, September 6, 2017 — 5A
Arts

DFA

James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem singing his little heart out
LCD returns with other-
wordly ‘american dream’

LCD Soundsystem’s first album since their reunion doesn’t 
disappoint with Murphy contemplating love, loss and age

The 
greatest 
tragedy, 

it would seem, is to waste 
your youth. To fail to live 
with urgency, to stay home, 
sober, alone. I, in the middle 
of my youth, feel the tug of 
expectation acutely, the push 
to model my life on the pictures 
of youth I see in movies and 
hear in pop songs.

James Murphy, whose youth 

was behind him before he ever 
made music with a band called 
LCD Soundsystem, calls those 
pictures of youth what they 
are: lies. But lies he still finds 
himself falling for.

Time — and its inextricable 

relationship with age — is at 
the heart of american dream, 
LCD 
Soundsystem’s 
first 

album since their calculated 
2011 “break-up.” Murphy, now 
47, wades through the debris 
of middle age — lost love, dead 
friends, unactualized dreams—
on an album that is at once 
textbook LCD Soundsystem 
and 
something 
completely 

new.

Both LCD Soundsystem and 

the world they make music in 
are different beasts than they 
were when the band bid us 
all farewell for the first time 
in 2011. And to those who are 
caught up in the betrayal of a 
band they love getting back 
together I say: 
So 
what? 
I’d 

want to hear 
the complaints 
if this album 
felt 
like 
a 

rushed 
post-

script. But it 
doesn’t. 
With 

american 
dream, 
LCD 

Soundsystem 
doesn’t 
want 

to rewrite their 
past, but rather 
make sense of 
their 
present. 

Sometimes, the 
only way you 
can make sense 
of a world on 
the 
brink 
of 

collapse is to 
make art about 
it. Sometimes, 
that 
means 

getting 
the 

band 
back 

together.

Seven 

years 
later, 

we’re still dealing with the 
manic, meticulous brain of 
the singular, ineffable James 
Murphy. “tonite,” the album’s 
third single and centerpiece, is 
sonically the most reminiscent 
of the band’s earlier albums. 
With its synthy, repetitive beat 
and cheeky yet earnest lyrics, 
it’s peak LCD Soundsystem. 
But, like the rest of the album, 

it’s more vulnerable and darker 
than we’ve ever seen them.

Ever anxious, Murphy is 

increasingly 
self-aware. 
As 

much as he laments the modern 
world, he calls himself out 
for that — “Oh good gracious 
/ I sound like my mom,” he 
quips. And, who exactly is 
he addressing when he sings: 
“You’re missing a party that 
you’ll never get over / You hate 
the idea that you’re wasting 
your youth”? It feels like he’s 
talking to me and 
also to himself.

Because, 
like 

its 
creators, 

american 
dream 

refuses 
to 
be 

any 
one 
thing. 

It’s art rock and 
disco-punk 
and 

electronica. 
It’s 

post-swan 
song. 

It’s 
a 
rebirth 

that’s obsessed with death, 
a beginning comprised of a 
series of endings.

Murphy is, as he describes 

himself in the song, “the 
hobbled veteran of the disk 
shop 
inquisition.” 
He’s 
a 

reminder of some bygone era 
when manic music fandom 
took up physical space. On the 
album, he clings to the vestiges 
of something else millennials 
allegedly killed. But he doesn’t 
seem to blame the younger 
generation for their murderous 
evolution of the industry.

That 
being 

said, american 
dream 
has 
a 

weight 
to 
it 

that other LCD 
Soundsystem 
albums 
don’t. 

The 
cultural 

and 
musical 

references feel 
like 
eulogies 

for a time and 
a 
sound 
that 

doesn’t 
quite 

exist anymore. 
And Murphy’s 
major 
sonic 

influences 
— 
Lou 
Reed, 

David 
Bowie, 

Leonard Cohen 
— have all died 
in 
the 
years 

since the band’s 
last album. On 
the 
album’s 

final 
track, 

“black screen,” 
Murphy 
eulogizes 
Bowie 
and 

laments 
his 
own 
inability 

to pinpoint his late friend’s 
location in the cosmos, the 
“black screen” of outer space.

Bowie is all over american 

dream. Murphy creates an 
otherworldly sound similar to 
that of the “Berlin Trilogy.” 
“oh baby,” the album’s opener, 
floats 
dreamy 
and 
hazy, 

signaling from its first notes 

that american dream inhabits 
a space far above the earth. 
And for the most part, the 
album stays there, hovering 
high in the sky, until the long 
comedown at the end of “black 
screen” floats it back down.

With its pared down poetry 

and repetitive word choice, “oh 
baby” is lyrically classic James 
Murphy. But it starts the album 
in a more melancholic place 
than we’ve seen him really 
go before. While american 

dream 
rides 

an 
emotional 

rollercoaster 
from 
anger 
to 

grief 
to 
brief 

moments of joy, 
melancholy is the 
real 
emotional 

backbone. 
There’s 
sadness 

in the sting of 
lines like: “I must 

admit: I miss the laughing / But 
not so much you” from “how 
do you sleep?” a song about 
Murphy’s 
falling 
out 
with 

former friend and business 
partner.

And, 
halfway 
through 

2017, what is more bitterly 
melancholic than the American 
Dream? And specifically the 
one Murphy paints on the 
album’s titular track. Murphy 
is old, a little tired, but still 
performing a type of youth 
rooted in the disappearing 
culture of the early 2000’s New 
York rock scene in which the 
band was born and nurtured. 
Murphy pokes fun at failed 
revolutions, his own age and 
the unbearable weight of the 
modern world. It’s heavy, but 
buoyed by a sparkling synthy 
sound and airy vocals, and the 
faintest spark of hope.

Such goes much of the 

album. Darkness sounds like 
light and sadness sounds like 
something akin to joy. It’s 
Murphy doing what he does 
best — ten or twelve things at 
once — both in production (his 
credits on the album include 
producer, 
writer, 
vocals, 

guitar, synth, bass guitar, 
drums, bongos, glockenspiel 
and mixing to name a few) and 
substance.

And it’s this ability to do 

so much with so little that 
makes Murphy’s music so 
powerful. His music makes me 
feel known, seen, understood, 
despite 
our 
circumstantial 

differences. 
I 
feel 
old 

sometimes, although I know I 
am not — too old to be young 
and too young to be old. I feel 
confused and left out and left 
behind by a world that seems 
to be spiraling out of control. 
american dream transcends 
delineations of age or race or 
gender because what it gets at, 
above all else, is the fact that, 
at the end of the day, we’re all 
just stuck moving forward in 
time. 

MADELEINE GAUDIN

Senior Arts Editor

ALBUM REVIEW

Fox Searchlight

“Patti Cake$” is an underdog story at heart
New ‘Patti Cake$’ gets 
by on heart and hip hop

The film chronicles the story of a poor, struggling Patti 
and her efforts to become a hip hop star despite her roots

It’s probably safe to say that 

“Patti Cake$” won’t be the most 
original movie anyone sees this 
year. It owes far too much of its 
story, themes and characters 
to “8 Mile” and other similar 
underdog stories for that to 
be true. It also won’t win any 
awards for unpredictability. 
From scene one, the ending 
and the path the script will 
take there are plainly obvious. 
What sets “Patti Cake$” apart 
from other movies of its type is 
its heart and just how genuine 
it feels. It’s a movie where it’s 
impossible not to feel for and 
root for its atypical cast of 
aspiring rap artists. It’s not 
perfect by any 
stretch of the 
imagination, 
but the movie 
is every bit as 
earnest as its 
unceasingly 
lovable leads.

The 

main 
story 

follows 
Patti 

Dombrowski 
(Danielle 
MacDonald, 
“Every 
Secret 

Thing”), a plus-
sized 
white 

woman 
living 

in New Jersey 
who 
dreams 

of becoming a 
rapper. Between 
dealing 
with 

her 
overbearing, 
alcoholic 

mother 
(Bridget 
Everett, 

“Trainwreck”) 
and 
caring 

for 
her 
wheelchair-bound 

grandmother (Cathy Moriarty, 
“The Double”), she writes her 
own music and plans to record 
it with her best friend, Jheri 

(Siddharth Dhanajay in his 
feature debut), in the hopes of 
escaping her impoverished life.

Again, 
the 
lifeblood 
of 

“Patti Cake$” is the main cast. 
MacDonald is endearing from 
the start as Patti (known by 
the 
moniker 

“Killa 
P”), 
a 

character 
with 

big dreams and 
the guts to reach 
for them, even 
as 
everything 

around her seems 
to be telling her 
to stop. Like the best underdog 
performances, 
MacDonald 

layers the optimism with an 
underlying tragedy, and Patti is 
more realistic – and therefore 
relatable – for it. It’s Everett, 
however, who ends up being 

the highlight as 
Patti’s 
mother, 

Barb, 
who 

once 
shared 

her 
daughter’s 

dream of making 
it 
big 
in 
the 

music 
industry. 

Playing 
Barb 

with a mixture 
of 
brokenness, 

cruelty and real 
love, 
Everett 

creates 
a 

character whose 
relationship with 
her 
daughter 

may 
rank 
as 

one of the best 
and 
ultimately 

rewarding of its 
kind this year.

As is befitting 

a movie that is, at least in 
part, a musical, the songs 
are fantastic. If nothing else, 
audiences should walk away 
from “Patti Cake$” with an 
appreciation for just what a 
talented 
rapper 
MacDonald 

is. All of the best scenes of 

the movie are built around 
the music, whether it’s the 
first recording session where 
Patti, Jheri and Patti’s scene-
stealing 
grandmother 
team 

up with reclusive anarchist 
Basterd 
(Mamadou 
Athie, 

“The Get Down”) 
to produce their 
first track “PBNJ” 
or the emotional, 
energetic 
finale. 

The film may well 
be worth seeing 
for the soundtrack 
alone.

Unfortunately, without the 

music it occasionally feels like 
the movie lacks a backbone or 
glue to hold the whole thing 
together. The editing loses its 
sense of rhythm, particularly 
during overcut dialogue scenes, 
and the cinematography — 
which trades in psychedelic 
rap 
video 
imagery 
at 
the 

best of times — tends to go 
for the increasingly popular 
“Moonlight” look. Many scenes 
are shot in handheld, shallow 
focus close-ups in an attempt 
to mimic the gorgeous, Oscar-
nominated cinematography of 
last year’s Best Picture winner, 
but as in many other movies, 
it’s 
more 
distracting 
here 

than anything else. It’s hard 
to feel for what’s happening 
onscreen when there are times 
you can barely tell what you’re 
supposed to be looking at.

Still, 
“Patti 
Cake$” 
is 

charming enough — both on 
the basis of its leads and its 
music — that it should be seen. 
It is a movie that has been done 
before and will undoubtedly 
be 
done 
again, 
but 
what 

problems it has are more than 
outweighed by the care and 
love that went into crafting 
this particular story. Other 
underdog movies should take 
note.

JEREMIAH VANDERHELM

Daily Arts Writer

american 

dream

LCD 

Soundsystem

DFA

“Patti Cake$”

Michigan Theater

Fox Searchlight 

Pictures

FILM REVIEW

Murphy is old, a 
little tired, but still 
performing a type 
of youth rooted in 
the disappearing 
culture of the early 
2000’s New York 

rock scene in which 
the band was born 

and nurtured

Unfortunately, 

without the music 

it occasionally 
feels like the 
movie lacks a 

backbone or glue 
to hold the whole 

thing together

“PUSH ME TO THE EDGE. ALL MY 

FRIENDS ARE DEAD. - LIL UZI VERT” - 

SAL DIGIOIA

E-mail arts@michigandaily.com for 

information on applying.

