Shut Up and Play The Hits!: Captures the End

In April of 2011, James Murphy decided to disband his group LCD Soundsystem, and went out on a final mega-concert at Madison Square Garden. The New York band, whose combined output was a mere three full length albums, called it quits. At the top of their game. For no apparent reason. Directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern captured the final performance, and then the first day of Murphy's non-rocker life.

 It is the best concert film of all time.

It combines the performances highs of Stop Making Sense with the living fugue state that is Meeting People Is Easy. It is a gigantic rock juggernaut that melds the fictionally huge performances of Spinal Tap or even Scott Pilgrim with moments so intimate they might easily cut into a Duplass brothers comedy.

And I hate it. I hate it because it makes me cry. And dance like an idiot. And feel feelings. And most painfully of all, accept the truth.

James Murphy is the only superstar producer my generation has known. There are vestiges of the Rick Rubins in the rock world, but all of our Phil Spectors have existed in hip-hop. Much like Kanye West, he built his name on designing hits for others and curating, then moved to a frontman position. You know a Murphy recording when you hear it. No one has ever, nor will ever, record a hand clap or a cowbell the way he does, and his type-A addiction to sonic perfection and human musicianship not only bleeds from each track, but explains why one of the biggest rockstars in the world also sets up all his own gear.

At a time when music divided into two camps, over-emotive (emo) and over-ironic (everything else), Murphy opted for honest. Painfully honest. And took it so far that it became fun. That's one of the reasons he's always seemed more like a standup comedian. People appreciate his "funny songs", but as he states in the movie, this confuses him because they're serious as a heart attack. Just like comedy, he often invites the audience to laugh at him, but instead we become him. That's the only explanation I have for how "I'm Losing My Edge" could make an 18-year-old Brock Wilbur miserable over how old he was. I wasn't the 38-year-old pressured into collapse by the impeding waves of upcoming musicians, I was a member of that horde. Maybe this was just selling an upstart elitist on the record store fantasy of curmudgeonly, High Fidelity inspired existence, but it made me fear death whilst spilling beer on a friend at my very first college frat party, which I count as an unequivocal victory for Murphy. (Additionally, Murphy loves to improvise lyrics, as captured in his updated version of Movement.)

But the focus is always on fun, and that's the most rock-n-roll thing of all. Forget the bullshit tears of Metallica in Some Kind of Monster or the melancholie of Wilco's I Am Trying To Break Your Heart; Murphy wants out of the fame game, but never wastes a moment of the fun left to be had. Even in the concert's final moments (New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down, with the Twin Peaks theme as intro), Murphy looks like a kid in a candy shop, stunned that someone let him wander onstage to play with balloons but unabashedly aware of the pride he deserves for working this hard.

This is perhaps the most important thing about James Murphy: showing that you can be a rockstar, and overthink/overshare everything, but never have to be sad. Which is why LCD Soundsystem's departure burns so deep. If the guy who has joy down to a science, the guy who started this part of his career at 38, can't keep going, what chance do any of us have?

The film alternates between Murphy the morning after, the show itself, and an interview the week before with Chuck Klosterman in a small coffee shop. It's a beautiful meeting of the minds, since Murphy is the musical pop philosopher king Klosterman would be if he sold his typewriter and bought an arpeggiator. The editing builds scene by scene, layering the interview's introspection over dance madness and disco balls, over shots of a hungover hero returning to his day job. The film keeps just enough songs in their complete state to capture the greatest moments (All My Friends sung out over a crowd of fifteen thousand will melt your heart, if you have one) while hinting at others (audible shouts of disappointment from the audience as the film cut away during the intro to Sound of Silver.) Guest spots by the Arcade Fire and throwaway shots of crowd members like Donald Glover or a crowd-surfing Aziz Ansari remind you of the scale, but watching Murphy alone, playing with his dog, proves his life scale has kept everything in perspective. He's off to have a family and raise some children, and none of us can fault him or cry foul, because look at the joy he's brought to this sea of humanity… and the theater of people singing along with me, a year after these events. This comes to a crashing halt in a scene so painful that, I'll claim I don't want to spoil it for you, but the truth is I'm afraid to burden it with my clumsy language. Musicians who have toured and known the joy of naming an instrument, scratching notes onto duct tape on a synth, or remembering fondly the individual nicks and scratches on your amp– prepare yourselves.

Ultimately, Shut Up And Play The Hits exactly mirrors its subject matter: a perfect runtime but I'd murder a stranger for a few hours more.

Yet why does it hurt so badly? Why are we all so invested in this one band; this one man?

There's a shot the crew continually returns to of a sobbing fan. And while we laugh at each repeat, it's hypocritical. None of us would be at this midnight showing if we didn't fondly remember shouting "All My Friends" at a birthday party, making-out to "Drunk Girls," or jumping off a strangers furniture to "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House." We are that torn by the loss as well, because it always stood to reason that LCD would just… always be there. And that there's be more of James Murphy to soundtrack the rest of our life, and continue to Sherpa us into confused adulthood.

But it isn't just about losing the artist. LCD Soundsystem has always been about directly channeling influences. So much so that the earliest record plays like a track by track tribute. And maybe that's the reason it spoke so clearly to places deep inside all of us. James Murphy was the only musician talented enough to give us that one last great song from artists that cannot. In their style, as them; for him and for us. Like perfect fandom. Like fan fiction. Like Joss Whedon writing one last Veronica Mars episode. Like Ridley Scott making a final Star Wars film.

We didn't just lose a great band. We lost a conduit. When you watch James Murphy bow, you're seeing the end of LCD Soundsystem, but also the final bow from The Fall, Can, Gang of Four, Talking Heads, New Order, Public Image Ltd, The Human League, Suicide, Roxy Music, The Stooges, David Bowie and The Beatles.

It's too big to process, so we clap along instead.

"It's like the culture 
Without the effort or all of the luggage 
It's like a discipline 
Without the discipline of all of the discipline 
It's like a movement 
Without the bother of the meaning 
It's like a culture 
Without the culture of all of the culture

You're history and I'm tapped."

– Movement