Movie Review : Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012)
What made rock music such a pervasive cultural force in Occidental culture is the idea that rock was never only about the music. That it’s a rebellious lifestyle you either embrace or reject like Born Again Christians reject Satan. It’s the expression of something you are. Not something you do. At least, it’s what I thought before I learned about James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem, who self-consciously retired from playing rock music in 2012.
That process was chronicled in concert film/documentary hybrid Shut Up and Play the Hits, which makes is seem both weird an extremely reasonable.
I knew of LCD Soundsystem before watching Shut Up and Play the Hits, yet never heard one of their songs. I understood they were culturally relevant, but was unaware to which extent or why. I sure shit didn’t think they were big enough to fill Madison Square Garden. From what I understand, they started in 2002 and managed to become one of the most relevant bands, grow tired of it and retire with a gigantic fucking concert within the span of a decade.
Shut Up and Play the Hits is chronicling the 48 hours around this final concert in James Murphy’s life. It is structured around an interview with pop culture critic (and patron saint of this site) Chuck Klosterman, which is apparently a reenactment of a written interview. He answers Klosterman’s questions in between songs from the concert and makes something abundantly clear: he doesn’t feel like LCD Soundsystem should define his legacy.
LCD Soundsystem is not an expression of who James Murphy is. At least, it isn’t in the way Guns N’ Roses is an expression of who Axl Rose is. Shut Up and Play the Hits doesn’t really give you any profound insight on who Murphy is or why he does what he does, but it gives you insight on why rock is receding. The raison d’être of rock is fading. It is no longer a medium for rebellion or self-expression. It has grown too big for its own ethos.
At least LCD Soundsystem did. When you become that type of large venue filler, you can’t change too much. Go in unexpected directions. Be a reflection of what’s going on inside. It’s not a relationship between the music and the self anymore. It becomes a relationship between the music, the self and the audience. I get why James Murphy wanted to leave his own band even though he didn’t seem to get it himself in Shut Up and Play the Hits.
He did not want to use LCD Soundsystem to reflect where he was going.
Shut Up and Play the Hits is eight years old. LCD Soundsystem eventually went back together, recorded new music and toured again. Maybe it is an expression of who James Murphy is after all and he needed to do other things in order to understand that. I don’t know. Maybe he felt like he was a prisoner of expectations. Rockers of the twenty-first century at like that. They don’t rebel against anything, except perhaps themselves and what they do.
7.6/10
