Losing My Edge:LCD Soundsystem

Artist: LCD Soundsystem

Date Released: August 2002

Label: DFA

Produced By: DFA

Tracklisting:
 * 1) Losing My Edge
 * 2) Beat Connection

Review: When music historians analyze the impact of the New York scene's explosion in the early years of the new millennium, the DFA will be regarded as the production team that helped catalyze an entire movement with two now-legendary 12-inches: The Rapture's House of Jealous Lovers and this, LCD Soundsystem's Losing My Edge. James Murphy was still barely a blip on the radar when this first broke, but by the end of 2002 he was a star, and the DFA hasn't looked back since.

Losing My Edge seems simple enough in premise: What for years countless musicians had been alluding to and subtly calling out, Murphy was now doing outright with little more than a simple flip-flop between Murphy's obvious Fall impersonations and a minimalist dance beat in the first half of the song, bleeding from bassline and drumbeats (copped from Killing Joke's "Change") to distorted guitar almost impossibly well into the second half where the vocals turn dance while the song rocks out. All the while, Murphy is explaining how he's lost his relevance and namedropping like few bands before: Can, Suicide, Captain Beefheart, Daft Punk (or was it merely daft punk?), the list of anyone that might've been considered culturally relevant in the last two decades goes on and on for six glorious minutes as Murphy finally sums up with a "You all know what you really want"... And as he says right at the end almost defiantly: "Okay, stop." We do.

That's where the b-side "Beat Connection" comes in. If "Losing My Edge" was the novelty that just happened to have great music, "Beat Connection" was the great music, devoid of commentary beyond "the saddest night out in the USA". But with jungle-driven bongos and a phenomenally climactic conclusion, "Beat Connection" was at least the equal of it's a-side and tore up dancefloors in the late summer of '02.

At a time when New York was a focal point of the world's attention for so many other reasons, LCD Soundsystem helped make the city as musically relevant as it had ever been with the magic of just two songs. Long nights out would never be the same. PMasterson