This Is Happening

Murphy recorded much of it at Rick Rubin's studio in the Mansion in Los Angeles, hanging a piece of the Sound of Silver fabric on the wall, and finished it at DFA. He named Bronski Beat, the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams and early Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark as touchstones; critics heard Bowie everywhere, most plainly in All I Want. He said he wanted records that risked a little more humiliation. The album is dedicated to Jerry Fuchs, the band's touring drummer, who died in 2009.

It opens with the nine-minute Dance Yrself Clean, whose long quiet opening explodes into one of their biggest moments, and closes with Home, which softens the opener's themes. It reached ten in America and seven in Britain. Pitchfork gave it 9.2 and called it pretty perfect; Alexis Petridis in The Guardian missed Sound of Silver's sense of new territory. It was second in that year's Pazz & Jop poll.