LCD Soundsystem "Sound of Silver" [2007]

"Dance Music for Dorks" should have been this album's title, and the concept offers a classic good news/bad news scenario. Good news: you can dance any stupid way you damn well please to LCD Soundsystem and no one else can call you out because they all look way stupid too. Bad news: this is the age of instant digital embarrassment, so shake your booty in public at your own risk, lest you wind up going viral and in Daniel Tosh's wheelhouse. Generally constructed by a random white boy with too much time on his hands, James Murphy devises ill-conceived concepts like imitating Berlin-era Bowie mixed with bad disco, singing with his sinuses clogged with snot, busting out synthesizers that were passé when Devo still did world tours and insisting on purveying extremely un-hilarious lyrical neurotica. I'm sensing a bit of Schadenfreude when it comes to the minor success of LCD Soundsystem: it soon becomes very easy for the listener to say, "Yeah, my band/life might suck, but at least I don't come off like this douchebag!" Besides, if silver really sounded like "Sound of Silver," it'd be totally worthless.