Listening to Discovery’s LP reminds us that synthpop is the
“sound of the aughts.” Twenty-somethings in the year 2025 will be
playing LCD Soundsystem and the Postal Service at their nostalgic ’00s
parties, decked out in American Apparel thrift finds and high tops with
straps.
Though LP feels like a recapitulation of everything faddish
about the past five years, it’s still a fun listen. The album’s opener,
“Orange Shirt,” is a lovely slice of fuzzed-out electronica, thanks
both to the appropriately breezy, neutered vocals from Ra Ra Riot’s Wes
Miles, and the instrumentation of Rostam Batmanglij, moonlighting here
from Vampire Weekend. They know the genre’s trappings, and often give
us just what we want: The bursts of static, whale-song synth trills and
shifting tempos of “Osaka Loop Line,” the R&B vocal loops on “Swing
Tree,” the roboto-disco-funk on “Carby.”
The worst moments here aren’t bad, just tepid—like the limp
cover of the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” and the island rhythm
lite of “Slang Tang.”
The appeal of LP is pretty clear: It steals the kitschy
elements of the 1970-1985 era but re-costumes them, similar to how
Urban Outfitters makes a vintage cereal ad relevant again by branding
it on a T-shirt and selling it for $30. LP imagines a glittery
futurism where we all meet in the discothéque, and classic
Motown is translated into the alien electrobabble once dreamed up by
acts like Newcleus. But now that babble is being broadcast using the
remote feature on the latest iPhone.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2009.