It was shortly after this that Murphy decided to get out of the bar mitzvah game for good…
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[4.70]
Martin Skidmore: If you take away the electro sounds, rather in the background here, you have what sounds like a lot of tenth-rate early punk numbers. I don’t mind it, but as on their previous singles, I don’t get what makes them so special.
[5]
Spencer Ackerman: I’d like this 2010-glam-rock better if it edited out the lyric “drunk girls like to file complaints,” which is the sort of thing that launches indictments against LCD Soundsystem. It’s typically well-produced but repetitive to the point of boring.
[4]
Ian Mathers: Okay, who gave James Murphy the impression that: 1) “North American Scum” wasn’t really dumb; 2) anyone cares about his lyrics; 3) anyone wants to hear him ripping off Eno AGAIN (Before and After Science this time)? On the basis of “Drunk Girls,” everyone who embraced the middling-at-best Sound of Silver has a lot to answer for.
[2]
Alex Ostroff: “Drunk Girls” (like “North American Scum” before it) will get a lot of flak for being loud and immediate and shouty and dumb. And, admittedly, this is somewhat awkward and kind of obnoxious. But so is being incredibly drunk. And much like being incredibly drunk, this song is also a great deal of fun, and compels you to dance in an uncoordinated and unself-conscious manner, regardless of who might see you. It’s not “Someone Great”, but it is a damn good pop song.
[8]
Anthony Easton: The Stephin Meritt of Indie-Disco makes the shout out loud, heavy dancing chorus of the year. More fun than it should be, and like always it functions as a meta-deconstruction of disco, of dance music, of the pleasure principle, but the bisexual orgy of open signification erases all of that hard work. For the first time — maybe it’s LA — the self loathing, and the exhaustion, and the over work are less present, though the wicked wit remains.
[8]
Alex Macpherson: It’s somewhat depressing to think about the days of “Losing My Edge”, “Yeah” and “Beat Connection”. Looking at the bloated, dull, self-parodic rock band that LCD Soundsystem have become, it’s increasingly hard to remember how they once thrilled dancefloors with sleek, taut beats and mantras, tracks to which the natural response was somewhere between posing and dancing. You can do neither to “Drunk Girls”, which is even more hideous than one could have expected after the snoozefest that was Sound Of Silver. James Murphy clearly thinks that bellowing the title in the manner of a football fan vomiting over our shoes isn’t enough for us to get it, so the music mimics the clumsy, graceless motion of a beer-sodden tramp lurching along the pavement. Utterly indefensible.
[0]
Edward Okulicz: As my colleague Jessica Popper pointed out on Twitter, this is just the chorus of “Boys & Girls (Don’t Go)” by Fefe Dobson, padded to length, isn’t it? I don’t care about how important LCD Soundsystem are, this is a fundamentally boring rock track with energy but no purpose. And it sounds awful anyway.
[1]
Alfred Soto: Cannibalizing Blur’s “Girls and Boys,” cannibalizing himself on “North American Girls,” drunk on pheromones and bad lyrics (the one about drunk boys walking “like pedestrians” is great though) but hitching a ride on one of his classic distorted riffs, James Murphy is in love with rock and roll and modern moonlight. All that’s missing is a chorus of drunk girls shouting “Radio On!”
[7]
Chuck Eddy: I was thinking Bowie circa “Boys Keep Swinging”, then sundry dance-oriented-rockish one-shots that came out in Lodger‘s early ’80s wake, then Blur going for that same old new wave with “Girls & Boys” in 1994, then electroclash another half-decade after that. Ever-diminishing returns and gratuitous sound effects don’t help matters here.
[6]
Iain Mew: “Boys Keep Swinging” > “Drunk Girls” > “M.O.R.”
[6]