For years, James Murphy has suggested that he would be closing the door on LCD Soundsystem; a lot of people didn't believe him. Even after his band announced their final night out, a three-hour show at New York City's Madison Square Garden dubbed The Long Goodbye, some still expect a 55-year-old Murphy will climb back on stage in 2025. Perhaps that suspicion is cynicism or perhaps it's learned behavior from watching artists turn from creative to careerist, but it's not going to happen. James Murphy may have lost his edge by the time he formed LCD Soundsystem, but he gained perspective, even wisdom. And one of the primary things he's projected from the start is that he cares, deeply, about what he does, the decisions he makes, and the reasons for them.

“When I was 30 I promised myself that I'd be out by 40 and I'm 40 now. Any more than this and I'd start feeling like a professional,” he told Clash last year. “A lot of the songs I've written are as good as I'm going to do. I don't want to repeat myself. So, what becomes the next goal? Being bigger? The next goal becomes about making more money. It's just not all that interesting.”

James Murphy's twenty-something failures (he was in and out of rock bands throughout those years, and even turned down an early staff writing job on “Seinfeld”), his studious appreciation for rock and dance history, his work ethic, and the sense of urgency felt by someone who is reinventing their music career at 30 laser-focused his vision and drive. Over the course of the past decade, Murphy and his band have argued and cajoled on record and on stage for an indie rock industry that increasingly lives online to still fight in the streets. From his first single he articulated the dangers of a life lived looking over your shoulder, or not taking your choices as seriously as possible; the natural flipside to the days spent as “Losing My Edge”'s encyclopedic Internet seekers and coolhunters was B-side “Beat Connection”'s sad, frightened, reserved nights out.

“I've put my life into it,” Murphy told The Wire in 2005. “I'm fully aware that it's my life. I don't have parents—they're gone. I don't get another life. I'm 34 years old and this is it. My entire youth is gone and dedicated to this, so I care enormously. I meet lots of people who don't realize that this is their only life.”

LCD also sought from the start to reclaim a specific vision of New York City and its musical history, specifically the late 1970s and early ’80s, where emerging sounds rubbed up against each other in ways that can only happen in a teeming, struggling metropolis. The friction between new wave, post-punk, underground disco, electro, and early hip-hop created some of the most invigorating music of the rock era, and Murphy homed in on that, first as a DJ and later as producer and musician. When LCD emerged in the early 2000s, New York nightlife and underground music in general were again more balkanized; scenes popped up and became about social positions within those scenes; sub-genres with strict rules about what was allowed had emerged, and are by-definition dead ends into which new thoughts aren't allowed to penetrate. Murphy's dance parties re-created that earlier spirit just as it was also playing out online, with exchanges of ideas crossing tribal and national boundaries.

Eclecticism became the watchword of the time, and LCD Soundsystem were the group who best and most clearly reflected that. To Murphy, this lack of originality takes the focus off the artist and puts it on the songs. LCD didn't task themselves with a need to reflect the desires and thoughts of their audience, to be an emotionally nourishing extension of their listeners, as so many bands in the early 2000s aimed. They just strove to make good music—borrowing from and honoring their sources, not being afraid to risk failure or humiliation, not shying from grand gestures, perfecting their craft. When Murphy did turn to articulate his own feelings—about music, hipsterdom, scenes, human relationships, the need for connectivity, aging, death—he just so happened to do it so well that other people couldn't help but relate.

“I don't think that I'm a great songwriter, I don't believe I'm this wildly original individual,” he told Pitchfork's Nick Sylvester in 2005, trying to sum up his strengths and appeal. “I don't believe that I'm astonishingly charismatic and really need to be heard as an individual voice. I do believe I take music very seriously. I do believe I am a very good manipulator of sound and I'm very interested in how sound affects my body and I do believe that is relevant to how it affects other people's bodies.”

As Murphy brings his project to a bittersweet end, we're telling its story through the music. All of it. Below, you'll find all of LCD Soundsystem's 43 songs cataloged chronologically—from “Losing My Edge” straight through This Is Happening—with insights on how each track fits into the big picture. —Scott Plagenhoef