Revisit James Murphy’s glockenspiel cover of David Bowie song ‘Golden Years’
James Murphy, best known for fronting indie electronic rock outfit LCD Soundsystem, has never been one to shy away from experimenting with new instruments and sounds.
Murphy formed LCD Soundsystem in 2002 and gained popularity through the single ‘Losing my Edge’ before releasing the band’s self-titled debut album in 2005. Featuring one of the band’s earliest hits, ‘Daft Punk is Playing At My House’, which hit number one on the UK Dance Charts. As a result, the album was received well, propelling the band into the next few years with confidence.
Their subsequent albums, Sound of Silver and This is Happening, were released before temporarily disbanding. Received with even greater acclaim and showing Murphy’s growth as a lyricist, these records cemented LCD Soundsystem as one of the most important and definitive bands of the 2000s.
Although the group claimed they were finished in 2011, they returned with the stellar album American Dream in 2017, which saw Murphy explore some darker sounds whilst also retaining the previous album’s danceability in a perfect encapsulation of an era.
Whilst LCD Soundsystem were defunct, Murphy worked on his own endeavours, which included remixing a David Bowie track for the expanded edition of his album The Next Day. He also collaborated with Gorillaz and Andre 3000 on a track called ‘DoYaThing’ and starred alongside Tim Heidecker in the film The Comedy.
Another one of Murphy’s projects during his break from LCD Soundsystem was scoring Noah Baumbach’s 2014 film While We’re Young, which starred Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts and Adam Driver. It was Murphy’s second collaboration with Bambach after previously scoring his 2010 film Greenberg.
For his work on While We’re Young, Murphy recorded a rather unique cover of Bowie’s 1975 song ‘Golden Years’. The song is entirely instrumental and features Murphy playing the glockenspiel.
The original track appeared on Bowie’s album Station to Station and was inspired by a Cliff Nobles and Company guitar riff whilst also incorporating elements of funk, disco, and doo-wop. Murphy’s cover couldn’t sound more different.
LCD Soundsystem have actually teamed up with Baumbach again to produce some music for his new film White Noise. The film ends with a dance sequence to ‘New Body Rhumba’, which marks the band’s first new track in five years. Baumbach apparently instructed Murphy to “write the song you would have written if you were writing songs in 1985, and write a really catchy, fun song about death”.
Check out Murphy’s cover of Bowie’s ‘Golden Years’ for While We’re Young below.
