The seven years since GRAMMY-nominated dance-punk outfit LCD Soundsystem released their critically acclaimed third album This Is Happening saw a variety of notable moments in the members' lives.
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The band separated for five years, some members continued to work with side projects and another bands — namely Hot Chip and the Juan Maclean — and frontman James Murphy went on a crusade to convince the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority to change their subway turnstile sounds to a series of melodic bleep-bloop tones.
When the group came back together in 2016, there was some uncertainty as to what would happen next. It seemed like the band had departed at the top of the heap for their scene and what they'd ostensibly been trying to accomplish.
"We're not the Rolling Stones," Murphy told The Hollywood Reporter back in 2012. "We didn't start when we were teenagers. We started when we were older. People had kids."
So when they did come back, Murphy made it clear to his fans in a well-publicized blog post that he was well aware, "It needs to be better than anything we’ve done before."
LCD Soundsystem's fourth LP American Dream was released on Sept. 1, and just this past week has officially become the band's first album to ever reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. (This Is Happening held the band's previous highest chart seat at No. 10.)
The chart rank was gained almost completely by way of physical album sales, helped along in part by the band's decision to take advantage of an increasingly common practice of bundling physical copies of the CD along with all tickets sold on their current U.S. and European 2017 tour.
Arcade Fire, the Chainsmokers and Katy Perry have employed similar strategies with their 2017 releases, with each artist or group likewise grabbing the No. 1 slot in their opening sales weeks.
