I know the most obvious answer to that question: I am not in college anymore. It\u2019s a fact of life that every artist, no matter the grandeur of their prime, eventually becomes a flop. And it\u2019s unimpeachable that the genesis of the indie rock boom occurred two decades ago, enough time to be composted into mulch for voluminous oral histories<\/a>. But I promise you that aging is only one piece of the puzzle. Because, generally speaking, nostalgia is supposed to be blissful. I had a great time at Oasis during the summer, and I caught the decomposing Pavement\u2014a band that hasn\u2019t released a new recording since the Clinton administration\u2014on one of its final nights of existence. Those shows felt warmer, more alive, ineffably closer to the heat of the discourse\u2014an exaltation of growing older, rather than the Reaper\u2019s cruel reminder. I think the difference is that my favorite band has been saddled with the most devastating of all denunciations. In 2025, LCD Soundsystem is cringe.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t argue with the charges. Over the past decade, and especially the past five years, LCD Soundsystem has receded into gentle domesticity\u2014growing more mercenary, more complacent, and more venal, totally unconcerned with the mystique it once cultivated in real time. Other bands who were less concerned about their artistic bona fides have fared much better. Creed, for example, is one of the most commercially minded rock groups of all time, and when Scott Stapp and Co. reunited in 2024, they had no DIY chicness to safeguard. (Somehow, this led to Creed becoming en vogue<\/a>, at the same time LCD was becoming cringe\u2014two dynamics that were once unimaginable.) And, to be fair, this reality made LCD Soundsystem, as a brand, more self-effacing in ways I often find charming. I was delighted to see that a corner of the Knockdown Center had been converted into a pop-up for the Four Horsemen, Murphy\u2019s swank, triple-dollar-sign Williamsburg wine bar, a happening I took as a declaration of proud washedness.<\/p>\n But other decisions the band has made have been more difficult to process. In 2023, as part of this holiday residency, LCD made three of its shows<\/a> \u201cexclusive to American Express cardholders\u201d\u2014meaning that lowly concertgoers brandishing Visas and Mastercards would be frozen out, further winnowing the small slate of dates. (One fan did not mince words, calling the policy<\/a> the \u201cwackest shit in the world.\u201d) A year prior, LCD Soundsystem had debased itself more dramatically. The band played a surprise set at ApeFest, an expo put on by the Bored Ape Yacht Club\u2014one of the marquee NFT brands from that febrile, post-pandemic delirium when people were spending thousands of dollars on proprietary JPEGs. (The NFT bubble popped soon afterward, revealing the enterprise as a massive scam.) Naturally, my Twitter feed quickly billowed up with images that seemed to be piped in from a psychedelic alternative dimension. There was James Murphy, the onetime King of Cool, pounding out, like, Sound of Silver for a gaggle of bemused crypto dorks. They seemed to be barely paying attention.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Luke Winkie <\/a><\/p>\n Remember, LCD Soundsystem is a band that was once frozen in amber, completely insulated from the corroding forces of time and capital. In that sense, maybe it isn\u2019t surprising that, upon defrosting, the band quickly adapted to a status quo in which the anguish over selling out has lost all salience. (LCD is far from the only act to make a play\u00a0with American Express.) Still, the distance between the version of LCD Soundsystem I fell in love with and the band as it exists today does leave me with some whiplash. As veteran music journalist Tom Breihan put it in his own postmortem<\/a>, Murphy was once \u201cso conscious and deliberate about the ways he expressed his own ideas of coolness,\u201d but the calendar turned over, the gray hairs spread, and LCD ceased to be synonymous with a chic, urbanite lifestyle.<\/p>\n \u201cHe became a rich guy catering to nostalgia for a certain era of New York hipsterdom,\u201d continued Breihan. \u201cThat\u2019s nice work if you can get it.\u201d<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, my date with LCD Soundsystem at the Knockdown Center was neither the first nor the last time I would shell out to fete my personal wistfulness. And, really, that\u2019s the circle of life in the ephemeral realm of indie rock. I used to go to shows to participate in the white-hot zeitgeist\u2014I have tales from long-past Coachellas, Lollapaloozas, and South by Southwests that could blow some of your minds. The best I can hope for now is to see a show and remember what that participation once felt like. Does that make the procession more embarrassing? Undoubtedly, but I have also begun to detect that\u2014perhaps like Murphy\u2014LCD fans are beginning to take some ironic pride in their own creeping irrelevance. When I told my friends that I was planning to attend the residency, several of them sent me an Instagram Reel made by the comedian Lucy Sandwick. The character she plays is a creaking millennial, perhaps suffering through a two-day hangover, gearing up for one final big night out on the town.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s go see LCD Soundsystem!\u201d exclaims Sandwick<\/a>. \u201cLet\u2019s all take molly even though we\u2019re 37!\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/8317d6e0-f431-49a3-83f8-8c3d58635e12.jpeg\")
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\n The Most Hated Band in Recent History Is Suddenly Beloved\u2014and Even Cool. What Happened?
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