100 Greatest Songs of the 00’s #28 LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum

Released: 2007

No one single character trait better defines the chasm which separates Britain and America more than their respectively antagonistic positions on both success and successful people. In Blighty being rich, famous or worse still being rich and famous is usually a source of immense personal guilt and often gives a platform for takedown to a hungry media; over the pond everybody seems to want a piece of it, no matter what the cost.

At some point in the 00’s this gargantuan piece of decades long social engineering started to breakdown and a new religion was birthed where flaunting it became awkward for one tribe and with a remarkable inverse effect, over here it was ok – quietly – to wear your life so others could see. Yet James Murphy wanted LCD Soundsystem to reflect none of that and with their sonic collage of Talking Heads, Kraftwerk, Bowie, ESG and a dozen other influences, they were the one thing that cash-rich Gen X’ers couldn’t buy: cool.

That didn’t stop them adoring Murphy of course, despite the obvious contempt he had for their chronically afflicted Metropolitan lifestyles. His second album Sound of Silver was an essential part deux to the non-culture war he’d been demanding and North American Scum, with it’s punk funk navigating the rubble, was a too clever riposte to everything and nothing at the same time. Successful people probably didn’t like it. But that was the sort of taste gap which had made them believe they were successful in the first place.