The National - Trouble Will Find Me

a critique of crescendo rock followed by a crescendo of what the fuck

wave after wave

I was offering a counterpoint to Josh in Chicago’s suggestion that the involvement of Matt Berninger’s wife might be a good thing. I don’t think that the situation is comparable to Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. Brennan is known to be a quirky, eccentric personality and their relationship has always had an artistic quality to it; it doesn’t seem like dull conventional family life. Carin Besser, on the other hand, just comes across as so ordinary that, as I said, it just punctures any rock 'n' roll aura around her spouse and, by extension, the whole band.

Counter-counterpoint: You don't - I assume - know Tom Waits or his wife or Matt Berninger or his wife or anything about any of their relationships or their lives.

What a bizarre thing to judge a band on!

> What a bizarre thing to judge a band on!

Rock 'n' roll is all about image. People judge bands all the time based not only on the actual music those bands play but also the image that the musicians give off. Why do you think that so many rock 'n' roll musicians since the 1960s have not revealed much of their ordinary family lives to the public? It is because that settling down to an ordinary family life with a wife (or husband) and kids clashes with the traditional image of rock 'n' roll as a certain freedom, craziness, rebellion, bohemianism, whatever. Now, in the case of a band like The National, apparently this doesn’t bother many of its fans. They might even think it is something cool. But the glimpse that the band has offered into ordinary family life (first the Berningers in the "Bloodbuzz Ohio" making-of, then press coverage in the years since) was a turnoff to me personally, just like when artists sing about their kids. I just thought I would throw it out here as one more reason this band can be problematic to certain people. That’s all, I didn’t intend to go on hating on them. I’ll retreat now and let the thread return to the more positive comments that the band’s fans would like.

when I need that low-down, dirty ass rock and roll with a rockin' 'tude, I know I can always reach for The National....or at least I thought I could...

xpost wtf?

I don't know anything about Kathleen Brennan, but I brought her up as an example of an external creative entity contributing to a band they're not in, which in turns adds even more to the mystery of a band with no clear fulcrum/leader. I don't know a single thing about Kathleen Brennan other than she's apparently real, but Berninger's wife Carin Besser is a former fiction editor at the New Yorker, which (not that she needs any defense) earns some boho credit. Anyway, her involvement is *definitely* a good thing, since she helps him write good lyrics, including lyrics not about children. On the last album she even helped him write a song about the breakup of their marriage (they were not breaking up).

And, yeah, the National might be cathartic but they're pretty conventional smarty-pants "indie" a la Radiohead or something, not some crazy monster rock explosion that one turns to for Dionysian release or whatever. I would be shocked if they were anything less than conventional in their private lives.

no squares allowed

Rock 'n' roll is all about image. People judge bands all the time based not only on the actual music those bands play but also the image that the musicians give off. Why do you think that so many rock 'n' roll musicians since the 1960s have not revealed much of their ordinary family lives to the public? It is because that settling down to an ordinary family life with a wife (or husband) and kids clashes with the traditional image of rock 'n' roll as a certain freedom, craziness, rebellion, bohemianism, whatever. Now, in the case of a band like The National, apparently this doesn’t bother many of its fans. They might even think it is something cool. But the glimpse that the band has offered into ordinary family life (first the Berningers in the "Bloodbuzz Ohio" making-of, then press coverage in the years since) was a turnoff to me personally, just like when artists sing about their kids. I just thought I would throw it out here as one more reason this band can be problematic to certain people. That’s all, I didn’t intend to go on hating on them. I’ll retreat now and let the thread return to the more positive comments that the band’s fans would like.

― Melomane

Well, I'm glad to see Jann Wenner knows about ILM.

lol

This band is problematic
The singer has a wife
And I have a problem with that

wait til this guy hears about Kim Thayil and the bookstores

Brazen rebellious board members criticizing musicians for *gasp* having age-appropriate spouses.
Crescendo rock is pretty spot on - I absolutely loved Boxer but I feel I don't really need to hear more from them.

If you absolutely loved Boxer I don't see why you wouldn't *want* to hear more from them?

Someone tell me about Kim Thayil and bookstores!!! Does he own bookstores? Can he read?!

Many, many layers of weird unpleasantness to unpack in those posts about Berninger's wife and whateverthefuck rock'n'roll is in 2019. Would anyone have deigned to make that initial post if it was about any other demographic than a white woman of a certain age? And who subscribes to rock'n'roll mythology in 2019, especially with regards a band like The National? Bizarre.

lol wilson's article literally has this aside: "On “Pink Rabbits,” he admits, “I was a television version of a person with a broken heart … I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in a park” (OK, so he hasn’t altogether left Cohen’s sexism behind)."

JiC, if you dig up the Taking Sides: Metallica vs Soundgarden thread, there’s an anecdote about an interviewer eager to hear about how wild Soundgarden gets on the road and Kim’s like “I actually just visit a lot of bookstores...”

RIP bookstores

Hah, that wouldn't surprise me. Then again, all rock stars are liars.

thayil has a philosophy degree iirc? the white wife of degrees

Chris Cornell shares a last name with an Ivy League school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_aN81SBI3A

this is a pretty typical National ballad but the arrangement is so gorgeous, feels like the best version of them as a band

I've noticed lately a trend of indie rock bands, who've already had basically a full lifespan by rock standards, ie multiple successful album/tour cycles across a decade plus, attempting to navigate a subsequent phase of being older and more low key, but also with stable home lives and families. I like it! It's interesting. The cliches have been done, and anyway will continue to be performed in perpetuity.

Incidentally, a good example of the converse would be Arcade Fire, who've insisted they approach every album like their first, and are commensurately self serious.

With diminishing returns!

I guess there's a spectrum between constant reinvention (AF, Arctic Monkeys) vs continual refinement (The National, Spoon maybe?)

Late Spoon >> late The National imho.

I reckon Spoon are underrated as experimenters. Traditionalists in many ways, sure, but every album has a very distinct sonic flavor. That said I'm a spoon fanboy so yknow.

I can't think of a single Spoon album I'd rather not hear ever again. I'm afraid I can't say the same for The National.

love their cover of Terrapin Station w/2 guys from Grizzly Bear that Man Alive posted the other day. a long song I can put on repeat.

A career career career!

But yes, as someone who is about to turn 40, I have a great deal of time for any musician - band, solo artist, mum, dad, whatever - who is continuing to make music and avoiding reliving cliched rock-n-roll fountain-of-youth cliches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifElv18k2O8

this is v good

apparently all the new national songs heard in this have been dramatically remixed for the film

i think this might be the best National album

unfortunately there's not much more in the way of upbeat art-rockers like "You Had Your Soul With You" and the moody midtempo tracks they've always preferred still dominate

Not In Kansas seems a standout on first listen but there's a lot to take in, especially with all the guest vocalists.

Must be a couple of their longest ever tracks on this record too.

i really like "where is her head", the way it builds with all the overlapping vocals is wonderful

the interpolation of thinking fellers union local 282's "noble experiment" in "not in kansas" was quite unexpected but it's nice to be reminded of that

i think this might be the best National album

as long as it's better than the last one.

it's in many ways a continuation of the last one but lacks a moodbreaker like "turtleneck"

unfortunately there's not much more in the way of upbeat art-rockers like "You Had Your Soul With You" and the moody midtempo tracks they've always preferred still dominate

this is true but sometimes the intricate arrangements trick you into thinking they are not moody midtempo tracks cf. "the pull of you"

holy shit "Not in Kansas": a monologue about Berninger's reminiscing about R.E.M.'s "Begin the Begin."

the guest vocalists actually make this thing feel less long than it is

I do regret that they didn't write a song for "Her Father in the Pool."

xps yeah the arrangements are what i like the most about this album, it's probably not their strongest collection of songs but the arrangements are all their best and most interesting they've ever been

"turtleneck" was the worst thing about sleep well beast, completely out of place and also just not very good

the guest vocalists are all very welcome and provide a nice foil for berninger, but none of them have quite the same impact as when gail ann dorsey first comes in on the bridge of "you had your soul with you"

i am probably going to attempt to edit this and sleep well beast down to a single album to finally make a national album that i love the whole way through

sleep well beast is a great record imo, i was disappointed at the time with how conservative at least half of it feels, and "turtleneck" sucks, but "empire line" -> "i'll still destroy you" -> "guilty party" is maybe my favorite sequence on any national record, and the new one is kind of like that sequence as a whole album

i revisited sleep well beast today and that was the sequence that really stood out to me so i'm really glad they went further in that direction this time. "the system only dreams in total darkness" is one of their absolute bests and "dark side of the gym" is a really lovely melody too. the rest of the album is just fine except "turtleneck" yeah, and the title track feels like a dry run for some of the more abstract parts of the new album but those highs are all wonderful.

i'll stan for carin at the liquor store

oof, i love the orchestration on this but the way they've done the vocals (and, frankly, the melodies) makes it feel like a second-rate attempt at what Young Galaxy do so well

wait, young galaxy?

"the pull of you" is absolutely perfect

first testament was really great
the sequel was incredible
like the godfathers or the first two strokes
every document's indelible

"not in kansas" -> "so far so fast" are like the two best national songs ever, right in a row

and "oblivions" is the kind of song only they could write