Every time I’ve seen LCD Soundsystem live, I’ve been surrounded by people who look exactly like me. The most cathartic of those experiences occurred in April 2010, when I carpooled to Coachella with a couple of high school friends in order to witness the kickoff to the band’s yearlong farewell tour. We don’t need to belabor the context, but basically, James Murphy—LCD Soundsystem’s singer, songwriter, and chief creative force—had spent the spring making noise that the band’s third album, This Is Happening , then due out in a matter of weeks, would be its last. The reasons for this were characteristically opaque; Murphy expressed a discomfort with his growing celebrity and a desire to de-professionalize the act of making music. More acutely, the founding principle of LCD Soundsystem has

See Full Page