I have no idea how to start this review, so I'll just be honest about that up front. I loved this band and I loved this movie and when this movie was released in theaters for one night only on July 18th, 2012 and I didn't manage to get to a theater to see it, I was majorly bummed out. So you can imagine how excited I was to stumble across this on Netflix of all places!
Shut Up And Play The Hits chronicles the forty eight hour period before and after LCD Soundsystem's final show at Madison Square Garden on April 2nd, 2011. Interwoven into the footage you see and hear excerpts of front man James Murphy's extended interview with Chuck Klosterman about the genesis of the band and what prompted them to disband and walk away right when they seemed to be on the verge of getting ridiculously, seriously big. That alone makes this movie worth watching to me and Klosterman is quick to ask Murphy: why walk away? That's not a very rock n'roll ending and it's somewhat unique in the history of popular music. Bands implode, rock stars die in various tragic accidents or self-destruct in excess or bands just keep going- some of them beyond the point of all reason and logic sometimes. Rarely do you see a band just drop the mic and walk away and that's kind of fascinating to me.
But that's LCD Soundsystem, to me. Fascinating. Their music defies definition. Is it techno? Is it punk? Is it rock n'roll? It seems to be a little bit of everything all rolled into one and the underlying philosophy of the band (if there is one) seems to be that they wanted to make music people could dance and have a good time with and if that was the goal, well then they hit the nail right on the head. (Yes, I hopped on Spotify as I was watching this to make a comprehensive playlist with all the LCD Soundsystem I could get my hands on- and I'm listening to it while I write this review.)
The entire movie is infected with this sense of joyful melancholy that reminded me a lot of my last day of high school. I took my time on my last day in high school- I walked around a little bit, I took in the sights, the sounds and then, finally, I went home. It was an ending but it's was an ellipsis and not a period, you know? You were moving on and it was an ending but it wasn't the ending. That seems to be big amongst the motivations for calling it quits. Murphy talks about how fast it's gone and how old he's getting and that he wants to do other things with his life- and that seems like a valid point to me. You only get one life, after all- and it's understandable that people wouldn't want to build their life and define their life around one thing, even if it's something as awesome as making music.
The concert itself is glorious to behold. The footage is amazing, the crowd is going nuts and some friends show up to help out too. A couple of members of Arcade Fire drop by to add some backing vocals to 'North American Scum' (the film's title comes from when Arcade Fire lead singer Wim Butler tells Murphy to 'Shut up and play the hits!') Per Wikipedia (the font of all knowledge) I guess that Aziz Ansari and Donald Glover can be spotted somewhere in the crowd as well? I didn't notice them- I was way too busy enjoying the music.
Overall: Oh to have been in Madison Square Garden that night! Since I missed that particular date with rock n'roll destiny, I had to settle for this movie and I am 100% fine with that. Beautiful, melancholy, spare, fun with some truly great music to listen too this movie is a beautiful swan song for a band that left us too soon. **** out of **** (If you've never heard of LCD Soundsystem, get on Netflix and remedy that stat. And then get on Spotify and educate thyself. You won't regret it.)
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