The National (2018)

One Liner: Depressing ass music loved by many people I like

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, alternative rock, post-punk revival, folk rock
Home: Cincinatti

Poster Position: 1
Day: Friday at 5:45
Both Weekends.

Thoughts: Before we get to anything, I've realized that this post got long, so here is a Tiny Desk (albeit from 2013) of these cats doing their thing.

Surprised to see these dudes on the first line of a festival as large as ACL.  I know my friends are going to think this post is yet another time for me to hate on this band, but I need to make my feelings more clear.  I don't hate The National.  Some of their songs are very excellent.  But what I don't like is the overall vibe when you listen to an entire album, which feels like I anticipate feeling after I hear some vaguely bad news.  Not like awful news - not my dog dying, or cancer diagnosis, or whatever - but like "aw man, they closed that place with the really good Greek salad?  Bummer" type bad news.

It's the lead singer's vocal tone.  He just sounds like he's presenting me with bad news, but he's not excited about it, and he almost regrets having to say it to me.  If he was a newscaster, they would shelve him for the feel good stories about soldiers coming home or lottery winners and then bring him out to talk about body bags piling up in war zones and hurricanes flooding instead.  *extreme Steven Wright voice* "Good morning, folks, its Matt Berninger with your daily report of all things horrible!  Have a day, Cincinnati."  Its kind of a constant drone, where he just finds one note and just says all the words at that same tone, without any emotion, grinding all joy from my mind.

I mean, their song titles are "Day I Die," "Thirsty," "Dark Side of the Gym," "Guilty Party," "I Hope I Finally Die Soon," "Nobody Else Will Be There," "Exile Villify," "Terrible Love," "Sweet Death,"  "I Should Live in Salt," "Afraid of Everyone," "Sorrow," "My Life Sucks So Bad Will Someone Please Just Choke Me Out Already and End This Shit," and "Murder Me Rachael."  I only made three of those up, and you might have trouble spotting the fakes among the other depressing names.  If you know which ones are fake, without looking it up, then I grant you the title of True National Fan.

Also, although the majority of people I hang with get annoyed at my blah attitude for this band, I happened to be texting one of my best friends, since like 5 years old, as I listened for this post.  He likes indie music and once invited me to a Decemberists show, so I thought maybe he would have a good explanation for why this band is good.  He wrote back: "I despise them, for not completely rational reasons" and then goes on to explain how a Bonnaroo show a few years back soured him on them.  I'm not all alone!

Although, you know what?  They have a brand new release available on Spotify, called Boxer Live in Brussels (Boxer is one of their albums), and it actually lifts up the songs with a little life and, almost, dare I say, joy?  Its a more fun listen than just the regular albums.

I've been spending too much time joking around about this band.  Let's get into it.  The band is from Cincinnati (thus the depression) and is made up of two sets of brothers and the lead singer.  Which is kinda cool.  Also cool, I have yet to spell Cincinnati correctly any of the four times I have written it in this post.  The spelling of that word is dumb.  The band's website domain name is americanmary.com because, according to lead singer Matt Berninger, "[i]t's a song off our first record. We never thought of changing the (website) name, although we should have."

The crazy thing is that their first album, 2001's The National, is more of an alt country/Americana album.  That track, "American Mary" sounds like a Wilco shuffle sung by a depressed Lou Reed.  The top track from the album is "Cold Girl Fever," with 1.3 million streams.

This album didn't make many waves at the time.  Wikipedia says it sold 15,000 units and no charts.  I'm lukewarm on that one too.  

2003's Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers and 2005's Alligator likewise sold under 100k albums, but Alligator got these guys on the critic's radar, showing up on a lot of top ten lists.  Its a good album, with a few fun uptempo numbers in the midst of the depression.  "Mr. November" has the most streams (apparently because they used the tune to support Barack Obama's presidency in 2008, even though it was written about John Kerry) with 5.9 million streams.

Hey, that song jams!  Forward to about the 2 minute mark for the tunes, but check that out!  They sound like they want you to have fun, and not just immediately tie a noose!  His walk out into the crowd is awkward.  But that tune makes me want more.  What else do these guys have?  ;)  "Abel" rocks out.  The "Geese of Beverly Road" sounds cool (especially lines like "we'll run like we're awesome!").  Alligator is a pretty good album overall.

2007's Boxer is what blew the doors open for them.  Jumped onto the Billboard charts and sold almost half a million copies.  Made a lot of album of the year lists at the time, and then ended up on Albums of the Decade lists for Pitchfork, Paste, and others.  The top track on there is the album opener, "Fake Empire," with 23.6 million streams.

Yeah.  OK.  It kicks in after a while and gets a little more interesting.  And pretty good lyrics, appear to be about going along with an idyllic life even though the world around you is shit.  At least that is how I read it, and I like it.  "Mistaken for Strangers" is my favorite on the album, sounds like real rock and roll.  OK, I'll admit it, I like Boxer.

After that, all three of their following albums charted in multiple countries, including up to #2 in the U.S.  But I'll note something that is true of almost all of these albums, and I think says something about them.  Except for the two albums where the last song is the top streamer on the album, almost all of them have high stream counts for the first couple of songs, then significantly lower for the remainder of the album.  Sleep Well Beast has approx. 50.6 million for the first four songs, then approx. 34 million for the last four.  Boxer has 43.4 M for the first four and 22.7 for the last four.  Which to me means that people are trying out each new album, based on the name-brand excitement of a new album coming out from someone they have heard of, but then losing interest before finishing the album.

It doesn't appear that I ever did a review for 2013's Trouble Will Find Me.  I've listened to it a number of times, in getting psyched up for their last ACL appearance, as well as just when trying to get into the band and figure out why I am the only person I know who isn't in to it.  The top song is "I Need My Girl," with 66.5 million streams - actually their top streamed song in the whole catalog.

Lovely.  AND so very true.  I do need my girl!  A good ol' love song!

Let's see what they are saying in the lyrics: "I am good, I am grounded, Davy says that I look taller, But I can’t get my head around it, I keep feeling smaller and smaller, I need my girl, I need my girl."  What the hell?  Who the hell is Davy?  What do the preceding four lines have to do with his need for his girl?  Does he need her because his own feelings conflict with Davy's misguided observations?  Height anxiety?  Is this a very deep metaphor I am missing?  I thought this song was going to be sweet and I was going to use it to woo my wife into a deeper love.  Instead, I'm just confused.  I bet a ton of people use this on their special lovertime playlists to prove their love, not knowing the shit makes no sense.  Davy Jones of the Monkees?  Davy Crockett?  Davy Jones with the locker?  Davy Jones who became David Bowie?  Which one of these guys confused you, buddy?

Here is my old review of Sleep Well Beast, which pretty well says "Day I Die" and "System Only Sleeps in Total Darkness" are the only songs that make any headway with me.  I tried looking up my old review of these dudes, but it appears that they came in 2013, which was the year before I produced this insane blog that looked at every single band.  My recollection of their show was not impressive.  I know at least two of you are annoyed at me right now.

I doubt I'll go see them at the Festival, but then again, my favorite thing they have done here is their live music.  So maybe I'll be talked into it (and posting up for a good spot to see McCartney?).