The National 'Alligator'

Even though that low-quality stream might not give you the best impression, Alligator is very good and worth checking out.

Maybe they got better or something? Or is it still like that?

oh yes. big U2 fans. fer sure.

I don't quite see the U2 thing. To me, the National are a glammed-up version of a Drag City band.

This record is really getting under my skin. Not sure why - weird time signatures, oddball lyrics maybe. I liked their last album fine but thought something was missing. This one feels fuller and more complete. I caught their show on Friday at the Mercury Lounge as well - lots of fun, very enthusiastic crowd. Almost didn't make it as it was sold out by the time I got there, but the lead singer was standing nearby and offered to put me on their list. Got in when they released a few more tickets, but thought that was pretty damn cool!

I think I meant;

like any of the "The" bands grown older.

'cos it sounds vaguely like I'm talking about The The and I'm pretty sure I'm not talking about The The. Don't think I've ever heard The The, well I'm sure everyone's glad that one's cleared up.

Just downloaded one of the old albums and it's pretty good too so far.

OTM.

The first few listens, it bored the hell out of me... a couple tracks are beginning to grow on me, but the lyrics keep bugging me. There's a bunch of great lines ruined by cloying/stupid ones immediately following. But the odd good line is the only thing that grabs me about it. The music's kinda bland, no?

Saw them live a few months ago and that sealed the deal. Great band.

"Karen, put me in a chair, fuck me and make me a drink"

Exactly what I meant.

Is there a thread for the new one?

no, i revived a thread simply called The National a couple of days ago to a sum total of 0 replies

ILM is too busy polling these days to discuss new releases...

THIS IS WHY WE NEED A ROLLING INDIE/INDIEPOP THREAD

I wouldn't go that far.

i would like a place to list swedish indiepop acts.

Fucking start it then, Paul!

This album is OK, and Alligator was OK too, but I can't help but feel that this band get at least half the discussion time they do just because they're a low (or no) concept rock band with decent lyrics, decent tunes, decent arrangements and no overt distracting worthy twee indie signifiers or concepts getting in the way. Or, their unremarkability makes people think they're remarkable.

Agreed, Nick! This is essentially what I've been posting privately.

ouch. on both counts. i wrote for another place along thing about how they were the sound of the failure of the clinton generation. there kinda like the hold steady if they'd never got into drugs but instead killer mortages. it's a sort of defiant hopelessness fueled by nostalgia.

i'm pretty sure Alligator is if not about the 2004 american elections then certainly inspired by them. it has that mixture of wracked defeat and crushing optimism that sums up that period for me. also i read in an interview that this was the case, after i'd theorized this. so win.

That's still not concept, Paul. I don't mean... REM concept. I mean... U2 concept. Zooropa. Zoo station! The National are a default rock band.

yeh but a default rock band with an engaging vocalist and a good story to tell. ok it's not concept in that sense but i know i could sustain a 40 minute interview with stuff i've gleaned from the record. the trouble with stuff like this is, if you feel it yr gonna get it and if you don't i dunno someone may be convinced... whats the point of music writing if there's not some chance of convincing someone else. i think, why i am so loathe to start an indie thread is cos well if i like something of that sort it's sort of raw, if y know what i mean, and when someone lolz or whatever it feels like a dismissal of the yr own relationship with the music. which it isn't but in yr head...

the national fufil a purpose for me in the same way lil wayne and lindstrom serve a purpose for me atm but that purpose is so linked to important things that talking about it feels almost like i'm talking about myself rather than the music. i don't want to do that.

Wow, this post is like an Indie Spelling Style Guide. (x-post)

i have very good hand writing thou.

x-post - that's precisely why you should start that thread, Paul! It's that linkage to important things, that personal connection, and finding the route of that, that's gonna convince people more than likely.

or loads of fucking jpgs and "lol indie" shit.

So I'm downloading this motherfucker right about now. Is it good? fuckin' pitchfork liked it, BUT IS ANYTHING ON IT AS GOOD AS 'KAREN' COZ THAT'S PROBABLY THE BEST SONG OF THEIR'S I'VE HEARD I RECTION.

Do you approve of this album cover for the Alligator 3xCD reissue due out later this year?

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/d0468d30b6.jpg

I approve of the concept.

Amazing what seeing a band curate and play at an ATP can do for your opinion of them. Love therm after this weekend.

http://sickmouthy.com/2012/12/12/national-motorways/

Whoa, this record is pretty good. I avoided The National like the plague for a long time, but then I heard "Pink Rabbits." Incredible song...nothing as moving as that on Alligator, but this record makes me want to dig deeper.

all the wine is a v good song imo

Recently revisited this for the first time in years. Always liked it, but it was so much more incredible than I remember it being. It's really held up.

yeah this is the good one

I like Trouble Will Find Me better... it's got better songs on it and it conjures more interesting moods. But they're two different things in my mind

The Lonesome Crowded West and The Moon & Antarctica

Perfect From Now On and Keep It Like A Secret

Mass Romantic and Electric Version

Alligator and Boxer

i'm not familiar with any of their albums really... have they made anything that comes close to "Pink Rabbits"?

"start a war" and "gospel" on boxer might qualify

i really love all of their last four records

pink rabbits is a tasty drink, I'll admit

Bloodbuzz, Ohio is more sanguine but right up there.

alligator is a fantastic record, my favorite of theirs

Bloodbuzz, Ohio is more sanguine but right up there.

― ledge

it has gin and Cointeau?

Classic band. I would put Vanderlyle Crybaby Cry up there with Pink Rabbits, maybe also Conversation 16, Slow Show, and like ten other songs. My favorite National song of all is Humiliation. Something about the time signature I think, sounds off balance in a way the album needs at that point

Pink Rabbits is indeed a standout on Trouble, great emo punches:

You didn't see me I was falling apart
I was a television version of a person with a broken heart

Closest thing melodically is perhaps Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks but not as good a song. Demons closer lyrically.

Most of their songs are going for the same emotional effect, honestly, but regret is so universal and they do it so well it doesn't matter

these men only work one song at a time; after a whole album of murmured thirtysomething plaints I want gin and juice.

well that's why i thought cherry tree was their best release for the longest time

weirdly trouble will find me is their longest record and my favorite. could stand to lose 2-3 songs still

Yeah their music goes better with a cocktail, better yet for drinking late at night when the bar's empty and you have to wake up for work the next morning. The Mad Men Season 7 of bands

once when i was watching them live i called them "bespoke indie rock"

"hirstute melancholy"

they are incredible live, too, if it hasn't been said. drummer's a beast, Dessners do their thing, and the frontman's got just enough of the crazy in him

i'm glad it's cool to like the national again

xp yeah, much better live. recorded version of 'terrible love' is still maybe my least favorite song ever

I used to always like Alligator the best because of the twinkling guitar lines. The guitar approach mostly devolved into thumb strumming across the board by High Violet.
Not that the guitar technique is a huge thing, but it was part of my draw to them when Alligator first came out.

That being said, Boxer remains my favorite.

weirdly trouble will find me is their longest record and my favorite. could stand to lose 2-3 songs still

"Slipped" and "Fireproof" are the obvious deficients to me, like to love the rest though

"Slipped" is key imo; it marks a lighter turn that carries through most of that final stretch (it's a beautifully sequenced album).

"Fireproof" is probably the only one I could do without.

This band has suffered a little bit from at least the artificial beginnings of a backlash, but unlike Arcade Fire (who deserves it, for being insufferable and falling off, despite still being good live), the National continue to kill it, imo, both live and on records. If it's too much of a good thing, well, I suppose one can levy that as a criticism, but I've never thought any of their albums slogged or sagged. Each album has been really well crafted and pretty light on if not totally bereft of outright clunkers.

i remember liking a few songs from the record before this one too but all i can recall now is '90 mile water wall' which is nice

imo one of the few bands whose music is enhanced by a hangover

yes

This band has suffered a little bit from at least the artificial beginnings of a backlash

A few critics I respect were ripping them, but it always seemed more like they were ripping the band's image ("boring" NPR white guys) than the actual band. There weren't a lot of big, consensus indie records in 2013, so The National became the proxy for those same sentiments we see every year.

I don't think the band is infallible or anything, but for my money they seem like they closest thing indie has to a Smiths/1980s R.E.M. going right now, in terms of consistency of albums and songwriting quality. Of all the big mid-'00s indie bands, they've held up the best imo.

Honestly one of my biggest pet peeves is seeing albums that aren't actually boring dismissed as boring, just b/c they're boring to read about or whatever

Nah, Matt Berninger isn't a quarter of the front man Morrissey was. He's afraid to be as weird and offensive. There's no comparison.

imo one of the few bands whose music is enhanced by a hangover

Also drunkenness.

re: Berninger, I feel like he's getting slightly odder and more idiosyncratic with time, though it'll take another 6 LPs or so to get him to Moz levels

Berninger is a lot more introverted than Moz, probably more depressed too - at least his writing is more about depression as boredom/anxiety, Moz more using sarcasm and flamboyance in dealing with spleen.

Saw National play 2nd smallest stage at Roskilde Festival '06, fantastic show - when they returned for 2nd biggest stage (17000 capacity) in '10 I was afraid all intimacy would be lost, but it worked out great. When they played the Orange Stage (60-70000 capacity) outdoors in broad daylight in '13 I was certain they would fail. But they nailed it, won a lot of new fans.

Thought High Violet was a marked drop in quality at the time (as mentioned above the studio version of Terrible Love is... terrible) but it's grown on me, and Trouble Will Find Me was a return to great songwriting imo. There was a wildness to Matt's vocals on Sad Songs and the strumming and especially drumming on Alligator/Boxer that's not really there on the last few albs, but it makes sense that they've grown more comfortable with understatement. Very good band.

As already said, difficult to spot any real duds in their work but it might be one of these bands where I feel owning 3-4 albums is enough, no mater how good the latest one is.

I used to always like Alligator the best because of the twinkling guitar lines. The guitar approach mostly devolved into thumb strumming across the board by High Violet.

At least three twinkly guitar tracks on TWFM (Fireproof, I Need My Girl, Hard to Find), plus some twinkly piano...

I do think they stuff their albums over full of identical maudlin tracks. I forget about them for ages, then remember and get all excited to listen to an album, I enjoy the highlights but by the end I'm facepalming and ready to forget about them for another year.

I do like that they've clearly spent a ton of time arranging their songs. That could be why some find them sort of ... airless? Because the songs are pretty air-tight. As propulsive as they can be, they're practically as hermetically sealed as bugs trapped in amber.

High Violet was the one that felt fussy to me. I thought TWFM really breathed, though; it's a big, comfy chair of an album.

oh there's some duds in their work. those 'conversation 16' lyrics. so terrible.
Trouble Will Find Me to me is pretty mediocre, though it was nice to hear Berninger exploring his range a little more.
a part of me wonders if they have hit the 'Welcome To Wherever You Are' stage of their career; too talented to make anything really bad, too checked out to really swing for the fences.

the American Radiohead

I mean they definitely are the US equivalent to Radiohead - distinctive singer, distinct lyrical tone, critical fawning, persistent popularity level, relatively consistent output in terms f perceived quality, and they've even got their own Jonny in Bryce Dessner. They're much less restless, of course.

they are not very much like radiohead, though.

A friend's son just turned 14 and his voice really dropped, so she quizzed me on deeper-voiced singers he might be interested in. I recommended the usuals like Cohen and Cave, but I also recommended Alligator as something more recent. Then I realized he was only 3 when it came out, so to a 14 year old it's not exactly recent. lol