[Planet E]

I feel about LCD Soundsystem’s “Throw” the same way I feel about the Hollywood remake of superb Swedish creepfest Let The Right One In (retitled Let Me In for the Stateside version). Sure it’s perfectly adequate, but why bother? If you’re reading this site, you already know how amazing the Paperclip People original (included here) is, and I can’t objectively say that the LCD Soundsystem cover is bad. It’s easy to see why James Murphy and his merry men have used the Carl Craig classic as a live staple for the last few years. The punk-funk bass line, ten years after (or actually also before) the fact, the propulsive, motorik groove and the yowls of “I wanna feel” are all tropes present somewhere in the LCD DNA. But the cover is so perfunctory, so faithful, it almost has me thinking it’s some kind of concept a la Gus Van Sant’s frame-by-frame remake of Psycho.

Maybe the most disappointing aspect of this project is that it follows a recent fashion for Pitchfork faves tackling vintage dance, but without any of the bare modicum of reinvention that similar efforts display. The Whitest Boy Alive frequently cover pop-dance classics (“You Don’t Know Me”, “Show Me Love”, “Music Sounds Better With You”) as encores to their live show. Erlend Øye’s plaintive voice often adds a tenderness absent from the more bangin’ originals, but they (or their record company) have so far sensibly resisted the urge to release these. Similarly, Detroit’s the Dirtbombs are imminently releasing an album’s worth of techno classics reinterpreted in their inimitable garage-rocking style. If the video for lead single “Sharevari” is anything to go by, it should be good fun at the very least. I wish I could say the same about this. Damned by its own competency, and tellingly, originally released as an iTunes bonus track, Planet E really shouldn’t have bothered pressing this “Throw”-away to wax.