LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip pick their favourite songs
Before James Murphy became the frontman of danceable indie favourites LCD Soundsystem, he made his way by playing obscure records around New York City. He bounced around sound engineering and DJing and eventually founded DFA Records. It was only when he found that he was losing his edge to the kids coming up from behind that he decided to try his own hand at creating music rather than merely spinning it.
LCD Soundsystem spawned in 2002, and the rest is history. The band fused electronica and indie rock with ease, forcing even the most stand-offish indie kids to get their Doc Martens to the dancefloor. Synth player Al Doyle toured with the band in the late 2000s, joining it officially in 2015, while also playing with electropop enthusiasts from across the Atlantic, Hot Chip.
Perhaps expectedly, the pair of them have music recommendations to spare, as they demonstrated during an appearance on iTunes’ Celebrity Playlist Podcast. Taking it in turns to share some of their favourite tunes, the resulting playlist spanned techno, ambient, and experimental rock and is essential listening for any fan of LCD Soundsystem or Hot Chip.
Doyle’s picks opened with a track from Brian Eno’s “underlooked” 2005 record Another Day On Earth, titled ‘This’. “I’ve just got quite a lot of affection for this record… it’s very unashamedly ’90s,” he shared. His more obscure picks included an Odetta composition he tracked down after watching Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew.
Showing off his wide-ranging taste, Doyle also elected to shout out a techno record by Reaganz, which he felt “compelled to choose to be representative of the sort of things that Felix [Martin] and I like to play when we’re out and about.”
Murphy’s picks began with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “comically 80s” “heart-tickler”, ‘Almost’, which he remembered falling in love with while making LCD’s 2010 album This Is Happening. Between picks by Suicide and Modern English, he also named a Black Flag song that certain devoted fans of the band might disagree with.
“A Black Flag purist would say that Damaged is not the record to pull from,” Murphy commented, “because it’s a Hank record. It’s a little middle period. But Damaged was a big record for me growing up, because it was the first Black Flag record that I ever bought.”
Ranging from the hardcore punk of Black Flag to obscure techno tracks, it’s a stellar collection of tracks full of new discoveries and cult classics. Find the full list of songs below.
LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip’s favourite songs:
- ‘This’ by Brian Eno
- ‘Almost’ by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
- ‘Dying on the Vine’ by John Cale
- ‘Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne’ by Suicide
- ‘Roses Are Free’ by Ween
- ‘My Sex’ by Ultravox
- ‘Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child’ by Odetta
- ‘Six Pack’ by Black Flag
- ‘When I Am A Kid’ by Demis Roussos
- ‘Dance Of Devotion (A Love Song)’ by Modern English
- ‘Confidence’ by Reagenz
- ‘I’m Falling’ by Ministry
- ‘Let Me Roll It’ by Paul McCartney and Wings
- ‘Too Much Love’ by LCD Soundsystem
