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

sounds cool. evocative. slightly absurd

it seems like a very bad song title to me. I'd feel v stupid saying something like, "hey, please play that hit The National song 'Dark Side of the Gym' for me next, my man" to the rock 'n' bowl dj

song titles should be a unique stream of numbers that take on the song's meaning if the song is good enough. naming your song 'Dark Side of the Gym' is like naming your new car design 'Toyota Matrix'

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

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Friday, September 8, 2017

OTM

well yeah, it's silly. i like that. mitigates the MOR ennui of their music & image.

xxp

it is a perfectly Nationalian song title/sentiment imo

never a good idea to talk to a DJ when they're performing imo

to a rock 'n' bowl dj, spoken song titles are the keys to the hash table containing all playable songs. but the hash function has been given to the artist, and it is plain irresponsible to title your song with a pun on another title. collisions are inevitable. especially when ginuwine - pony is playing so loudly.

what is it a pun of?

yeah I don't know what's up with the production on that first song on High Violet, it's aggressively, intentionally shitty. Anyway, new album, ok, whatever, it's fine so far.

High Violet is great and the production on the first song is great too, no idea what you are all talking about!

Not listened to the new album yet. Been a National fan since the first album, their early shows were fucking intense. With every new album I dread they inch closer to being U2.0. Please assure me this is not the case (yet).

They're nothing like U2.

i've never understood that comparison at all

Arcade Fire are a lot like U2. The National are not.

I never said they were; I said I fear for them becoming like U2. And am glad this is not the case.

I'm faintly baffled that anyone would fear that.

They went from obscuro indie-outfit to stadium-sized band; their songs got 'big audience friendly' over the years, too. I like it all the same (though I def prefer the early works). It's not that much of a stretch, surely? In any case I'm glad they aren't U2, 's all.

Personally I fear them becoming Nickelback. Not saying they are Nickelback, just that I fear them becoming Nickelback

Ok...

lol sorry about that, that was mean. Just weird logic though. I'm not sure I even buy their songs have become bigger and more audience friendly. In a lot of ways their albums have become more hermetic over time—lots of moments that seem almost purposefully devoid of showmanship in the interest of setting a mood

nickelback have some tracks

No offense taken Evan, all good. But:

I'm not sure I even buy their songs have become bigger and more audience friendly.

For real? The s/t and 'Sad Songs' had both very quiet and 'screamo' songs. Alligator and consequent albums after that showed a way more polished sound imo.

Alligator is the one with their big arena tune. But that was 2005. The last album in particular, and what I've heard of this one (which I'm really enjoying so far), both feel like inward retreats.

Not that the band can't sell the shit out of even their buzzkill songs live, but I haven't heard anything from them lately that would make a radio programmer go "Yes! Yes! That's the one!"

I almost forgot about the original version of “Terrible Love.” I just replaced the file with the alternate one in my music library a few years ago and never looked back. But gee, that original mix was indeed horrendous and headache-inducing.

and thus, even on an exclusive forum for music aficionados, misguided opinions on the National were widespread :P

forgot about this today, will play it next week.

it's lovely but whoever said above that it's mostly unmemorable is otm. High Violet was the epitome of what i desired from them (distilled pure middle aged somber angst) and everything else feels like variations on the theme. it sounds of a piece w/ some other albums i've been loving recently (man orch, brand new) at least in terms of a dreary aesthetic but far less dynamic.

HV tracks also amazing live

and otm

I might give this one a spin, but given that I can't remember a single thing about the album before this I'm not optimistic that I'll find much to enjoy about it. Alligator is okay in places, though.

listen its ok to give up on a band if <10% of their discography interests you.

Yeah this is a band that I think is very unrated and very prone to stereotyping and inaccurate generalizations. But that being said, they're also very much not everybody's thing. I kinda lost my will to keep saying "no really you should give this a try." It's like, if you listen to Pink Rabbits and it really does nothing for you, then you might as well move on

For me this is a band that's become more valuable over time. Especially as so many indie rock acts (and especially white male indie rock acts) lost their touch over the last half decade, they're one of the few bands from that scene left standing that can still deliver that fix I used to get from these kinds of records. But if you can find that somehow in like a War on Drugs or LCD Soundsystem record, I understand how those would hold a lot more appeal

it's weird, i think this is their most immediately accessible record since probably alligator but that's part of why i don't like it as much as their others, relistens are less rewarding than they've traditionally been, the album is just gets more flat and antisocial the more i engage with it. and i was sort of expecting the opposite as they really swaddle most of these songs in inviting electronic blinks but it oddly makes the songs sound more haphazardly arranged and unfinished

and the reason i like this band is because of the way they play together as a band, even their most fussily arranged arabesques usually have some good drumming, but the closest they come to sounding like a band on the new one is "turtleneck," which sucks, and the best songs seem the most liberated from their interplay ("i'll still destroy you")

the album is just gets more flat and antisocial the more i engage with it.

Yep -- like a cute guy you meet at a friend's apartment party who smiles at your jokes and talks to you about music but becomes obviously bored if not sullen

Dang that sucks so much to hear. Most impressive thing about this band for me had been how replayable their records are.

I like what the National are and represent, but I don't find it bears repetition- not enough to listen to album after album. Which is to say, I get enough from tracks on Sad Songs, Alligator and Boxer to not need any more, because it's only going to be a variation on that Berninger/National theme. I'm now one of those people that go on the internet to talk about things they haven't seen or listened to.

wait, what do they represent?

What I have to flesh out my undercooked ramblings now? Jeez.

Well, Berninger's arc has always seemed a relatively narrow one, tracking 'his' (people like him/me) neuroses as he staggers into middle-age. And for all their credentials, the band are pretty conservative, too. At their best their Robert Lowell in a haunted ballroom; at their most average they're just an empty apartment. And 'Dark Side of the Gym' just signals stuff like 'Bad Neighbours' to me - a movie title which makes watching the actual movie entirely unnecessary.

i fear them turning into coldplay more than u2.

"High Violet is great and the production on the first song is great too, no idea what you are all talking about!"

are you listening to the same mix everyone else is? because it sounds like shit; it's all fuzzy and compressed and transistory and shit sounding. I'm not sure what the intention was but the result is just crappy for such a good song.

"i fear them turning into coldplay more than u2."

to be fair, the thinking dad bod's coldplay.

I love the fact that the two complaints itt is "they're too boring" and "I don't like it when their production is raw"

That song is not raw. It's fucking horrible. Rid Of Me is raw. And awesome sounding.

turtleneck is sick wtf

TBH I think that “Terrible Love” is a great song — in terms of songwriting and rhe actual performance and mood and emotions etc. — but it’s ruined by the mixing. The album version is just a brick of noise; when I heard the alternate one, I was like Yes, finally! It breathes, it’s alive.

I’m actually quite curious why they made these particular production choices for only one track on the album — the remaining High Violet songs are nowhere nearly as compressed; they sound nice and reverb-y. Have they addressed it in interviews?

And OTM with Rid of Me being an example of extremely raw music that doesn’t make your head hurt. But that’s Albini’s touch.

and Polly Jean Harvey's.

always thought "terrible love" was a demo they couldn't replicate the energy of so they just slapped the demo on the record

It's like they wanted some kind of MBV fuzz over it, but just fucked it up.