Digital Video Magazine — August 2012
‘LCD Soundsytem: Shut Up and Play the Hits:’ Capturing A Landmark Performance, Recording An Intimate Portrait
On April 2, 2011, LCD Soundsystem played its final show. The event took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. LCD front man James Murphy had made the decision to disband one of the most celebrated and influential groups of its generation at the peak of its popularity, ensuring that LCD Soundsystem would go out with the biggest and most ambitious concert of its career. The instantly sold-out extravaganza moved the thousands in attendance to joy and grief, with New York Magazine calling the event “a marvel of pure craft” and TIME magazine lamenting, “We may never dance again.”
Shut Up and Play the Hits is a narrative film documenting this once-in-a-lifetime performance and an intimate portrait of Murphy as he navigates the personal and professional ramifications of his decision. The documentary premiered at Sundance earlier this year, with an encore presentation at SXSW, before getting picked up for distribution by Oscilloscope Laboratories. In an unusual move, Oscilloscope released the film nationwide for a one-night-only engagement on July 18, with the event quickly selling out in cities across the U.S.
Prior to embarking on Shut Up and Play the Hits, directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace had completed the Grammy-nominated feature No Distance Left to Run, which chronicled the career, disintegration and reunion of the English band Blur. Eager to begin another documentary project, the duo considered a number of subjects but weren’t sure they wanted to do another music film. A mutual friend introduced them to Murphy, and they began to kick around ideas. “We were very clear that we weren’t going to do a standard band biography documentary,” Lovelace relates. “We wanted to make a film that had a story and affected people emotionally, and that came from a very specific moment in time.”
Two months later the band announced the show at Madison Square Garden, and the filmmakers knew they had the moment around which the film would be centered. Spending roughly six months in pre-production, they planned the logistics for an 11-camera shoot that would include director Spike Jonze, who had previously worked with the band on music video projects. (Read full story…)