Modern Idolatry.

• Reflections on Shut Up and Play the Hits.

LCD Soundsystem's Farewell concert at Madison Square Garden has become an event regarded with near religious reverence in musical circles. I would have killed for a ticket to that show. Naturally, when it was announced that documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits, detailing the lead up to and immediate aftermath of the concert, would be screened at cinemas across the UK followed by a satellite Q&A with James Murphy in London, I instantly bought tickets.

I was desperate to attend, and the documentary was truly fascinating... but I'm not really much of an LCD fan.

For me, the band's songs have always divided into three categories. First, the "single-friendly" category: the upbeat indie and dance-punk songs that see the band at their most accessible: The Daft Punk Is Playing at my House or Drunk Girls type songs.

Second comes the surprisingly introspective, emotional, and touching songs. All My Friends is undoubtedly one of the songs of the current musical generation. Tracks such as All I Want and New York I Love You also find home here.

Finally, however, comes the unfortunate category of the glitchy, inane, often barely on the right side of discordency tracks. The Disco Infiltrators or the Pow Pows. While writing this I happened to be listening to On Repeat. I was intrigued by the low buzzing noise Murphy had incorporated into the track, until it stopped and I realised I'd missed a phone call from my father.

Skipping tracks is almost taboo amongst those who "truly appreciate albums" and generally pressing the double-forward does indeed leave me feeling wretched and soulless, but an LCD record finds me hammering the skip button in a way that I usually reserve for output by Ryan so prolific that I release three albums in a year when one would suffice Adams.  I came to LCD as a fan of indie music, not dance music, and this might explain my lack of understanding, but it is just that - a lack of understanding. The songs in category three simply make no sense to my ears. They come across as filler; muzak for hipsters.

Having said all that, the neat little construction above was in fact composed before watching Shut Up... Now that I've seen it, I still feel largely the same, but will concede two things. One: I perhaps didn't give my third category enough credit. Sitting down and actually focusing on a track like Someone Great does make you realise that there is a lot of lyrical content there worth paying attention to. Two: Despite saying that I'm not a fan of dance music, having now watched a film of the band's live show, with Murphy strolling around the stage like some sort of dishevelled party ring-leader, I can see how the category three songs might make sense in context. A lot of sense. I suppose I can conclude that three, I'm going to give all LCD records in their entirety a lot more time to see if I come round.

But back to my point: why my rush to check out the film? Why the obsession with a band that I will happily dismiss half the catalogue of? The half of the tunes that I do enjoy I enjoy a great deal, but there's definitely something more to it than that: I think that I am enthralled with the cultural phenomenon that is James Murphy. The man appears to be the embodiment of modern cool. From LCD itself, through his myriad of other trendy-sounding projects, his involvement with Outkast, Gorillaz, and Converse (oh, all the cool mis-spellings), his fanatical coffee consumption and his perma-quiff, his involvement in indie film, and his generally doing cool shit and being a cool guy, Murphy has become somewhat of a modern idol. Whether he intended to or not, he has become more than a mere performer and has begun to take on a cultural significance in his own right.

Before going to the show I knew what I wanted to say about Murphy. The bones of a mostly average blog post were very much in place. It was a brilliant surprise then to discover that the exact thing I'm talking about is discussed by Murphy and Chuck Klosterman on screen. Murphy explains that any truly enthralling show that he has attended has been 50% about the music and 50% about the overall mythology of the individual or band performing it. The pair discuss Lou Reed and David Bowie  ("David Bowie's from fucking Mars" is probably my favourite standalone line from the film) and Murphy explains that he feels that Nick Cave is, for him at least, the last of the great musician-cum-mythological heroes.

When asked how a fan might emulate LCD in the same way someone might emulate Lou Reed by wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket, Murphy seems genuinely stumped. He doesn't recognise himself as an idol, and this humility perhaps adds to his appeal. Indeed, he admits that at least a small part of the reason for bringing the band to a close is that he likes being an everyman who can ride the subway without being recognised. While I personally can certainly admit to attempting to rip off the beaten up tennis shoes and blazer style that Murphy seems to have co-opted, his attitude to his art and his scene represent something far more significant for fans to aspire to. Perhaps LCD's most iconic song, Losing My Edge, at length highlights the futility of desperately trying to be cool.  Elsewhere in Shut Up... Murphy recognises that he is a lover of pretentiousness purely for the sake of pretentiousness - he recalls reading Gravity's Rainbow at 16 in an attempt to appear cool, although it is unclear for whom. The man's self awareness is admirable in a time when the cult of hipster-ism can regard itself in a viciously serious manner. Taken in sum, Murphy seems to embody an effortless cool, but at the same time an obtainable, realistic and down to earth one.

So are idols dead? In today's internet-based DIY musical age they don't exist in the same overt manner as the Bowies or the Reeds, not in credible music anyway. Murphy is therefore right to an extent, but idols are still there if we look for them. Kerouac disciple, story teller, and Hold Steady front man Craig Finn instantly comes to mind. Despite claims by some that the man is losing his edge, Finn remains for me, at least, a scribe or prophet for the generation inspired by Murphy. His tales of parties, shows, and music festivals so accurately describe the events and the characters contained within, but more importantly, all the emotional highs and lows that go along with them. His style and outlook have certainly informed my literary choices and the way in which I view the musical scenes around me.

I'm not intimately familiar with the world of Jack White, but I'm sure that he too holds great significance somewhere in the musical map that I'm beginning to draw. He has expertly branded himself as unconventional and a bit of a badass, and the various PR stunts that Third Man Records are pulling off are going a long way to prove that he just don't give a fuck. Elsewhere a band such as the Gaslight Anthem manage to maintain a very committed, distinctive, and focused everyman retro aesthetic in all aspects of their musical product.

It's reassuring to make such a list. It's easy to lament the past and fear for the future when we hear a statement such "Nick Cave is the last great iconic artist remaining" but it certainly should not inspire panic. Icons can be found everywhere if we want to find them and to fret about the fact that modern music doesn't have an equivalent of Lou Reed is to do modern music an injustice. The list above were merely a few of my personal favourites and came very quickly to mind. I could name others - Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew (responsible for the often awe-inspiring musical behemoth that is Broken Social Scene) would be obvious candidates for me. The bespectacled bookishness of Colin Meloy and the ever popular Decemberists is certainly worthy of note.The fact that I had already placed James Murphy himself in this category before watching the film speaks volumes.

Therefore, don't worry about Murphy lamenting the fact that idols are dead. Maybe he's just lost his edge.