Not Your Music

LCD Soundsystem, Japan’s Innovative Export

Originally, LCD Soundsystem wasn’t a band fronted by musician/producer/DJ James Murphy. It also wasn’t first heard of in the 2000s. Try the 1970s. And back then, LCD Soundsystem referred to a different kind of sound engineering.

The digital clock’s tagline, “Wake Up and Play the Hits,” was re-purposed fort he LCD Soundsystem concert documentary, Shut Up and Play the Hits.

Electronics manufacturer SANYO released the LCD Soundsystem digital clock to great fanfare at select Japanese retailers in April 1970. The dynamic product enthralled consumers with its modern design, wood-paneled exterior, and glimmering ruby-red space-age digits. But the device’s most exciting feature was a never-before-heard “radio alarm,” offering sleepers the option to wake up to the sounds of the latest pop hits instead of shrill electronic bleating.

Looks like Mr. Murphy could use an LCD Soundsystem of his own!

However, the ensuing “LCD fever” that gripped Jaoan was not without tragedy. Prior to the opening of a household appliances store, throngs of frenzied customers pressed against the outward-swinging doors, pinning people to the glass and trampling others who fell to the ground. Eleven died and more than seventy were injured. Incidentally, the deaths were used to play up the alarm clock’s popularity—one notorious magazine ad simply presented the clock with the tagline above reading, “TO DIE FOR”—as the product quickly became ubiquitous in the country’s homes and businesses.

Synced Up With Censorship

The Canadian government has imposed some hefty measures to defend itself from foreign powers, but there’s no greater evidence of the country’s protectionist mentality than that which dots the maple-dappled northern shores of the Great Lakes.  At first glance, one might think they’re a relic of the Cold War’s Distant Early Warning system, but the communication towers currently rusting away from Thunder Bay on Lake Superior to Kingston on Lake Ontario mark another conflict: Canada versus *N Sync.

   

The front lines of American forces undermining Canada’s cultural sovereignty.

In the boy band’s late ’90s-to-early aughts heyday, the group’s harmonized captivation of young girls’ hearts pushed Canada’s federal government to protect their impressionable youngsters.  With atypical swiftness and support across all political parties, a law banning all things ‘N Sync was passed.  The measure was met with high popular opinion among parents, having whipped themselves into a moral panic that Chris Kirkpatrick and JC Chasez would corrupt their daughters with “un-Canadianly” seductive promises destined to end in the teary eyes and brace-faced grimaces of heartbreak.

                            

Despite repeated requests from Miramax Films, Canada has yet to lift its ban on the 2001 film On the Line.

With Canadian insecurity at a peak, over $3 billion was appropriated to build the infrastructure needed to block radio signals from pop music stations in Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo (customs officials also cracked down on shipments of ‘N Sync albums and memorabilia coming over the border).  Canadian officials never forgave the US for all of the funds spent protecting the national interest and decided to recoup their losses by unleashing their own pop star menace.