Of course, these are all the rants of a jaded and elitist hipster who feels threatened by a new generation coming along and stealing his thunder, getting into all of the records he used to spin at famous nightclubs and gaining recognition for something he believes he was there first for. It\u2019s the gatekeeper\u2019s anthem, and the sort of thing that the snootiest old dude at your local bar would unironically say to your face when he sees you invading the spaces he once believed he ruled over. These things are not who James Murphy is.<\/p>\n
I ought not to have to explain to you that half the things Murphy claims in the lyrics to \u2018Losing My Edge\u2019 are impossible for him to have achieved. Born in 1970, he would have had to have been kindergarten age attending the first Suicide practices, and both Can and Beefheart\u2019s first shows predate his existence. What Murphy is doing is satirising the feelings of being a has-been, an egotist, and a fragile man who can\u2019t bear to fade further into insignificance than where he started.<\/p>\n
The thing is, at the age of 32, he did have intrusive thoughts about all of these things. He\u2019s right in that once you leave your 20s behind, people are going to start treating you like a senior citizen, and someone who can\u2019t speak about modern culture with authority. Murphy knew that he was still in touch enough with what was going on at the trendy Brooklyn clubs in the early 2000s, but he felt defeated by the fact that people probably wouldn\u2019t take him anywhere near as seriously as he felt he deserved to be.<\/p>\n In an effort to lighten these feelings of dejection and becoming an outcast, he chose to satirise them by creating the most ludicrous parody of someone who felt as though they were experiencing this cultural changing of the guard. None of his references to\u00a0Pere Ubu<\/a>, This Heat or Althea and Donna are going to mean anything to the new cool kids of 2002. None of the unsubtle brags about having witnessed rock history first hand are going to impress someone half your age on a dancefloor. None of the sneering comments about their bands switching their guitars for turntables and back again are necessary.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s not all in good faith or self-deprecation that \u2018Losing My Edge\u2019 emerged as LCD Soundsystem\u2019s debut offering. According to Murphy himself, he wasn\u2019t ever a fan of the disco, techno and dance music he was aping on the track until shortly before he recorded it, owing his sudden enlightenment to using ecstasy for the first time.<\/p>\n He also supposedly wrote and recorded the song after encountering an up-and-coming Pharrell Williams at a show, feeling a sense of embarrassment about how much this younger figure had waltzed onto the scene and instantly become cooler than him. By his own admission, as revealed in Lizzy Goodman\u2019s\u00a0Meet Me in the Bathroom<\/em>, \u201cI was not cool. I wasn\u2019t going anywhere. I wanted to, but I wasn\u2019t. And, oh god, I was aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n The difference between Murphy and the people he is satirising in this song is that he at least had the grace to admit that he wasn\u2019t above these feelings of jealousy, self-consciousness and wanting clout for something he felt he\u2019d contributed to, but at the same time, perhaps that\u2019s part of why the song ended up appealing to so many people. These are ugly feelings set against dance music, ultimately creating a sense of catharsis where it\u2019s acceptable to feel this way due to being in an uninhibited space.<\/p>\n The true irony is, Murphy hadn\u2019t lost his edge; he was about to acquire it. From being a lowly studio engineer who occasionally played in punk bands in his 20s, he\u2019d suddenly found his means of breaking through when he least expected it. \u2018Losing My Edge\u2019 might not have been the catalyst for LCD Soundsystem\u2019s explosive introduction to the scene, but it\u2019s certainly a bold way of kicking things off on a quest to launch a massive career.<\/p>\n![\"Festive](\"https:\/\/cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/uploads\/1\/2024\/07\/Festive-origins-and-digital-displays-What-does-the-name-LCD-Soundsystem-mean-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
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