The National - Sleep Well Beast (Sept. 8th, 2017) Anticipation Thread

in the mood for a new National album, so yeah looking forward to this.

This is about the only one from the usual suspects I'm excited for. Sorry, Arcade Fire, Phoenix, Fleet Foxes, LCD Soundsystem, Grizzly Bear, Lorde, Haim ... Actually, I take that back, I like how Grizzly Bear sounds, so that album should sound pretty cool. I suppose I'm looking forward to the War on Drugs, too. Oh, and a new Randy Newman. And the Algiers album is great, so there's that.

Another new one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71xmrULJ-ms

those two singles are among their bests already. really psyched.

i love the idea of a band doing the same thing over and over again, with slight variations, working the perfect formulation.

there are two singles?

those two releases i meant!

nice, i had no idea they leaked two songs yet.

If anyone wants a sneak peak at lots of other new songs off the album, there's a rip of their Paris show from last week here

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

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7889813/the-national-first-number-1-billboard-songs-chart

This has now leaked

i think "turtleneck" is one of their worst songs ever but the rest of this is good

I like pretty much everything the band has ever done, but this is not as good as last album. Of course, the last album was about as good as they get.

yeah otm

i also don't know why they insist on putting out hour-long albums

^^^ Yes!! More Boxer-length albums please The National ...

gonna listen soon but it must be said that "dark side of the gym" is an excellent song title

song is nearly as good as the title tbh

I like pretty much everything the band has ever done, but this is not as good as last album. Of course, the last album was about as good as they get.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, September 4, 2017 11:26 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah otm

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Monday, September 4, 2017

ya'll are crazy

no I think they're otm

wtf is up with matt's voice on the new one's opener

They've never made a great album and they peaked in 2010. By 2013 they were almost parodying heterosexual middle age angst.

Counterpoint: they've made at least two probably three great records, and have been almost parodying themselves for the last couple, which could be the same as parodying heterosexual middle age angst.

every national album is a long drive to van nuys, where you trade in your minivan for a mazda miata

this is their best-sounding album at the very least

three quite good songs (The System Only Dreams, I'll Still Destroy You, Dark Side of the Gym) with the rest being mostly pleasant but unmemorable means this definitely is a National album

They peaked in 2007 for me, and held that peak reasonably tight until the following album. Last album over-egged the pudding for me; too many instruments, too much in the arrangements. The lead songs from this that I've heard seem like they've stripped back a bit, which I've enjoyed.

they peaked on mr november and everything since has been indistinguishable slowness with a few highlights

i stand by this rockism

I like "turtleneck"!

the Obama associations have spoiled "Mr. November" and "Fake Empire" for me tbh

not feeling this album at all

what obama associations with those songs?

Fake Empire was used as intro music, if I recall correctly. I think it was playing before he went out for his Grant Park victory speech.

they made "Mr November" shirts w O's face on it iirc

awesome shirts thb

tbh*

Been sitting on a promo of this for ages but waiting for the right time to listen to it (in part b/c listening to a National album in the summer seems wrong). Trouble Will Find Me turned out to be a really important album for me; probably my favorite indie rock record of the last five years.

Should I just bite the bullet and buy the vinyl, album unheard? I'm not expecting to like it as much as the last one, just so long as I like it more than High Violet

Yeah, HV is the only of their records I (almost) never listen to

this is probably my least fave since the early records tbh

TWFM only really opened up for me after ~20 listens so I'm patient

Had no idea he apparently writes his lyrics with his wife.

TWFM was a realllly slow grower, yeah. I liked that album's length, since on most early listens I didn't make it deep into the album's second half, where a lot of the really great stuff is. Little surprises to find later.

This one feels backloaded to me atm

dark side of the gym is a good song title

I thought we were going to get something pretty interesting with record given that "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness" was the lead off track but man this thing is dull which is saying something given we're talking about the band who's brand is all about being sad about being normal.

"sad about being normal" -- otm

I can't tell if this is dull-good or dull-boring. Maybe more the latter.

this band does some of their best work when they're being boring imo; trying to be interesting is how you end up with a High Violet

Do people not like High Violet? it has some of their best songs on it!

It's the only one I have trouble getting into, though I have to concede I am trouble building up much interest in this one.

The first track on High Violet is mixed absolutely fucking horribly and gives me an instant headache. I don't know what they did but it's fucking horrible.

England, Vanderlyle, the one about bees, though - they're right up there as my favourite National tracks.

They're a moody chamber rock act. They've been like that for years and years. Not sure what to make of all these people saying they were fans of Boxer but nothing else, or would not see them live after Boxer. What's changed?

Who were all of the extra musicians, just strings and horns?

Also, all this weird misplaced criticisms of their singer as somehow more of a dad than any other dad in rock and roll. (hint: there are lots of them) Is it because he wears glasses now?

I love the National but tbh I would never think to see them live post-Boxer - they're 100% a studio band to me.

― Simon H., Thursday, April 25, 2019 7:33 AM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they're still really good, the way they play the sleep well beast tracks live ("walk it back" especially) convinced me of that record's quality. they hold together a lot of moving parts

They're a moody chamber rock act.

They are a remarkably featureless moody chamber rock act! When that trumpet solo entered in at the end of "Fake Empire" I was like.. OK, here's some content, finally. I'm also very into "low content" music generally, but there's something strange about The National that I can only say is "featureless"... coupled, generally, with lyrics that are interesting combinations of words that don't seem to mean anything

There was the five core band members, a second drummer, a second other dude kind of behind him, two backup singers, Leslie Feist on some songs, Ben and Kyle (their standard brass players), and a six piece string section. That makes 18. Maybe I accidentally counted a tech when I was tallying them up

I am actually here to argue that they are in fact actually really bad and serve as comfort food for people with low standards

Ha, not only does comfort food for people with low standards describe most music, but it would make a great album title!

New board description as well.

Should also say that while I respect they might not be any one person's thing, or overrated, to cite the National as particularly bad music for people with low standards might indicate standards that are far too high!

lyrics that are interesting combinations of words that don't seem to mean anything

lyrics of "fake empire" are particularly straightforward, most national songs are about feeling alone and uncomfortable in your skin and noticing an unbridgeable distance between yourself and others, plus alcoholism, afaict, not hard to grasp

I also think the banalities of his lyrics are not only intentional but highlights! BTW, xpost, the Hip? Do you mean ... The Tragically Hip?

sometimes they achieve this effect through abstraction more than detail but they do both cf. "am i the one you think about / when you're sitting in your fainting chair drinking pink rabbits" "i'm so surprised you want to dance with me now / i was just getting used to living life without you around"

xp

and the hip are a bad comparison, downie was leagues ahead of either berninger as a lyricist but he was leagues ahead of fuckin everybody on earth. the hip were a bar band with a poet for a frontman, the national are an indie rock band whose songs are like turning musical box constructions with a depressive but often funny and un-self-serious frontman

both bands share a lot of qualities with r.e.m., though

Berninger does have a lyrical tic that tends toward tautology, for lack of a better word. Like (paraphrasing) "I owe money to the money to the money I owe" or "I'm too tired to talk about talking about being tired" or whatever. But I think those turnarounds are also kind of funny.

I call that move the Woomble.

Antimetaboles gone awry. On account of the drinking, no doubt.

I learned a new word!

I'm a big fan of "I better get my shit together, better gather my shit."

I brought up The Hip because I have indeed felt comfortable and happy watching dad rock as a member of an almost-entirely white audience. There are more differences between both bands, though.

I was thinking about the projections, which indeed were just solid colours following titles for each song. Could've been a lateral Jarman reference? I know The National enjoy their avant-garde references. But the entire projection affair created a metaphor for the music below... high production values, enormous numbers of personnel onstage, expensive gear, undeniable individual musical facility with every participant, but a result that was, save for Berninger's vocals featureless. When one of the Dessner's took a rare solo, or the trumpet player did a thing, it was such a contrast to everything else that was going on onstage. It's not groovy enough to enjoy the band settling it, it's not harmonically interesting enough to feel as if any individual song was necessary, the strings and brass generally didn't do more than hold down pads to what was going on. I like boring music, I like dad music, I like all the components that make up this band, but the sensation was one, specifically, of featurelessness, and the excitement and appreciation of the performance in the crowd was undeniable, and here I am trying to unpack why the hell this band is more (globally) successful and critically revered than The Hip were, for example.

Also I don't deny that Berninger has his moments, lyrically. I scan his lyric sheets and think "that is nice" as often as "I don't have any idea what that means and neither does anybody else, I suspect". There is an appreciation I have for the way the band has branded themselves, naming their website after an old song (American Mary), naming their online community after an old album (Cherry Tree). There is a repetition of tropes: a man pinning flowers on a woman, hold my drink, a blue ribbon, a red ribbon, another drink, a reference to a place, a reference to a time of day, my mind is hazy, and so on. Every band has a novelty song that becomes a hit but Berninger are too focused on existing within this particular narrow lane of banality that there is no room for novelty, beyond, I guess, "Mr. November" (because it contains the word "fuck").

The representation of alcohol both within the band's lyrics and their onstage presence is something I find disconcerting more than appealing, not because I'm clutching pearls about it, but because it feels demonstrative and exaggerated, but it doesn't make me feel entertained, it just makes me feel uncomfortable, as it would seeing somebody get too drunk at a party.

I do like the tautologies that Berninger writes. I tried to put on "Boxer" this morning to see if "hearing the studio recordings" would clear my head and reset me back into casual fandom, but I scanned down the list of songs and realized I didn't want to hear any of them. I am very confused about this band. I am feeling this morning like it is some kind of trick. Some kind of capitalist trick. An accident of a lot of money being spent on gear and alcohol, a lot of accumulation of power and personnel. And people enjoying the music is an accident, too. It feels like a hiccup. I understand the appeal of 95% of the music out there but The National still confuse me.

R.E.M. are another such band that confuse me. I don't understand what Michael Stipe is doing.

Like, aside from showing up and getting paid, that is

That explains a lot.

Oh no, I like R.E.M., but I don't understand what Harborcoat is about, neither do you, and neither does Michael Stipe

And… that's totally fine? Enigmas in art seem to be a dealbreaker for you (which isn't to say I find The National particularly enigmatic).

most live music is bad in the wrong mood or state of mind. sometimes the feeling sticks with you. you are not a recently awoke observer of a capitalist brainwashing conspiracy. maybe, for example, you were just feeling self-conscious about the date you planned.

The representation of alcohol both within the band's lyrics and their onstage presence is something I find disconcerting more than appealing, not because I'm clutching pearls about it, but because it feels demonstrative and exaggerated, but it doesn't make me feel entertained, it just makes me feel uncomfortable, as it would seeing somebody get too drunk at a party.

Interesting digression imo. Like, Eddie Vedder used to go through a bottle of wine over a night, but he seems to have stopped, and PJ music doesn't really reference alcohol. But a year or two back my friend took me to see the Old 97s (I was never really a fan), and almost every song seemed to be about drinking, yet the band had nothing harder than bottled water on stage, which I found ... weird. Drive-By Truckers used to pass a bottle of Jack Daniels around, but they seem to have stopped (as the shows got longer and they got older? also ... dealt with substance abuse/drinking problems, iirc?). Berninger, fwiw, supposedly suffers from some degree of stage-fright, at the least. I looked back on something I wrote here about the doc made about his brother, and at least at the time (I only saw it that once) I wrote that it implied he and his brother both share some degree or reliance on alcohol. I know Berninger has said drinking (and pot) has played a big role in his lyric writing. Don't know if that is still the case.

dave matthews eats a whole roast on stage when performing 'too much'

I've definitely become highly attuned to just how pro every band seems to be these days, with static setlists and strict musical cues and a general adherence to rigid song structures and arrangements. I don't know how much that has to do with capitalist brainwashing, more like big audiences that deserve better than a band fucking around/up? I also read that Berninger now has a teleprompter, which supposedly helps him with his stage fright. But it did make me consider that literally every single arena show I see enlists a teleprompter, and never/rarely smaller shows, and I think it's less that those smaller acts have easier to remember lyrics and more that, yeah, there might be more wiggle room to forget than in a less forgiving huge-venue environment.

I've mentioned before how Springsteen seems pretty glued to his teleprompter these days - watching the Broadway show was kind of awkward because all these stage movements that made him look thoughtful or sad often seemed, at least in person, designed to let him see the prompter. But I've also mentioned an awesome letter Nils sent the Maryland paper defending Springsteen and his prompter live, saying, hey, this past tour we played 170 different songs, sometimes for the first/only time ever, many not rehearsed, give the dude a break.

Haha Sufjan that was funny

I think "enigmas" in art aren't so much of a deal-breaker so much as it felt, to me, last night, that this wasn't about "enigma" so much as it was about, well, featurelessness, meaninglessness, non-statements occupying space and sound in the place of a statement. I guess I started to kind of spin it around mentally a little bit, thinking that this kind of "non-statement" itself was comforting to attendees, that it didn't require thought or processing, it didn't intrude upon the identity of the audience. It created a listening environment that was strictly about the spectacle of a large number of highly competent musicians and money spent on production. In fact I feel much more "this way" toward Michael Stipe as a lyricist/singer than I do Matt Berninger, that the singer's presence and thesis is not about "enigma" so much as it is about a kind of paucity of intention. And I wondered why people would be attracted to this, because I myself am not, not really, at least, not right now and not last night.

It wasn't a date just fyi, my friend just happened to be the one who wanted to come with me to the show, and we noted without prejudice the striking homogeneity of the crowd.

Heads up, not unique to the National.

Oh, for sure. Part of me was wondering if whatever mechanism it is that attracts a certain subset of listeners to this musical experience might be termed as a kind of "classicism", that is, the same attraction that somebody might have toward abstract painting and/or symphony concerts

There are many different ways of approaching abstract painting and concerts of orchestral music, and not all of them involve a yearning for classicism. That said, if 'classicism' is shorthand for 'resting on one's laurels', I do agree that The National's music has tended towards self-canonization in recent years, which is why I'm indifferent to most of their output post-Boxer.

I tried to command-f the word "featureless" and my computer exploded.

Anyway, I have also felt that their compositions had kind of... lost some texture or dynamics on most of the albums I've heard following Boxer. For instance, as a guitar player that focuses on it I noticed that there was more finger picking among tracks on Alligator and by High Violet there was more soft strumming of basic chords. That's a specific example, but the sonic textures overall seemed less distinct and the newer songs themselves are harder to differentiate for me. I haven't really listened to the most recent album, though!

it didn't require thought or processing

this is not true in my experience of listening to the national. "sea of love" is a weird, lopsided-sounding song, i enjoy thinking about how it works

this thread got weird imo

like their thing may or may not be your thing but to suggest that bc it's not your thing it's also uninteresting musically in some sort of absolute way... i mean jam bands bore me to tears but i don't feel a need to make that their fault.

You've never seen someone present personal musical preferences as objective truth before?

fwfw Some piece I read said that starting with the last couple albums the band no longer records together in a dedicated home studio. They're too far flung around the world so contribute kind of digital-era piecemeal. Also fwiw, they all live in super-hip/cool places except the MVP drummer, who still lives in Cincinnati, so that's pretty cool. Might explain a sonic shift, whatever the intent.

i mean they write songs piecemeal but i'm pretty sure they still record together

the whole narrative around the last album that they all went to one of the guys' home recording studio and lived there for weeks and spent time together and played in the pool with their kids, etc., etc.

I haven't seen the National in several years but last time I saw them they were anything but featureless. drummer's incredible, the twins are inventive guitar players, together they create a lot of dynamic and interesting and moving music, and Berninger's intensity/shtick/whatever, for me, is compelling. all imo, of course.

have the records become kind of featureless? that i could buy.

also, i agree with this:

I've definitely become highly attuned to just how pro every band seems to be these days

also if it was important to me to know what Michael Stipe is talking about in Harborcoat i wouldn't like any pop or rock music, who gives a shit it sounds good

I have to use the word "featureless" because it's the only word that applies! Boring sounds pejorative (and it isn't, boring music can be great etc. etc.), low-content can be great too (and this isn't low-content, it's more like... well, yeah.)

And they are absolutely the finest imaginable musicians, the drummer is truly incredible.

i mean jam bands bore me to tears but i don't feel a need to make that their fault.

I'm not making anything anybody's fault, sheesh, it's the worst thing in the world that we can't speak critically about "the work" and "the listening process" without it turning into a discussion about blame. There's a lot a lot of music out there I have no interest in, but I understand the synapse between what it is and why people listen to it. I am having trouble parsing that out with The National. I don't even consider myself a non-fan really, I have affection for stuff they've done, I'm just trying to puzzle things out is all, and why I felt so alienated last night.

I must have misunderstood elements of this piece:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/27/the-national-sleep-well-beast-interview

Wherein it says they all live in different places now:

The list of places where the members of the National now reside reads like the locations for a fashionable chain restaurant: Copenhagen (Aaron), Paris (Bryce), Los Angeles (Matt), Long Island (Scott) and Cincinnati (Bryan). This is a marked change from previous records. Until 2015, Aaron owned a house in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn and rented out the upstairs duplex to Berninger; Bryce had an apartment on the same street; the Devendorfs lived not far away. When the band wanted to record an album, they just walked a few steps to the garage in Aaron’s garden.

And then there was this, which I think is what I misread:

There have been sticky times for the National, even moments where the band feared it might implode. Before beginning Sleep Well Beast, Bryce Dessner was explicit that he wanted some elements to change. “There was a transition in technology, which happened around Boxer, when we all suddenly had Pro Tools at home and we started working separately,” he says. “It wasn’t joyless, but it started to become a more methodical thing. There were hard times for sure. Going into this process, I know I wanted it to feel different. So we set in motion a few things, and I feel like it opened a different world for us.”

I must have missed that for a time they *were* working more separately but now work together again? Anyway, some good confessions from Matt:

For a man with a reputation for being morose, Berninger is self-aware, even self-deprecating. “To be perfectly honest, the songs are already 75% what they are before I do anything to them,” he continues. “Aaron writes most of the music and there’s a lot of sadness and desperation and melancholy in so much of what he sends me, and I’m following his lead most of the time. So I don’t take full responsibility for our band being so miserablist and dark. It’s his frickin’ minor chords!”

Berninger freely admits he had “a chip” on his shoulder from watching other people make it. He missed the Cincinnati heyday, and then he moved to New York and had to watch the Strokes, Interpol and Yeah Yeah Yeahs blow up. “I was always on the outside of a scene looking in,” he says. “Then the Brooklyn thing started and I felt like we were, like, part of that: the Brooklyn scene. You had TV on the Radio, Grizzly Bear, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. That was finally where we were, like, ‘OK, this is the wave I guess we’ll catch.’ Because we missed the other ones!”

But while many of those bands have burned bright and fizzled, the National endure. Part of this is a focused, very conscious determination. About a decade ago, when Boxer came out, Berninger decided to wear collared shirts, suits and smart boots on stage. “I realised I wanted to do this for a long time,” he says. “So I started dressing like an old man, and that means when I do become an old man, people will say, ‘Oh, you haven’t aged at all!’ I remember there was this old photo where I wore a very low V-neck T-shirt, standing in a field of wheat. It was really bad. I thought it was going to be sexy, but I can’t sell that."

i have spoken with him once, don't claim to know him, but he seems like a funny, nice, regular dude. he's definitely more imposter syndrome than tortured genius or whatever.

what, though, is "the Cincinnati heyday"? I don't remember a Cincinnati heyday.

Afghan Whigs?

Ass Ponys?

Yeah ... I guess so. Kinda forgot about that little bubble.