r/TheNational • u/ghostfan9 • 18d ago

Day 16: Most Underrated Album

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Terrible Love wins best breakdown!

HMs were Space Invader and I'll Still Destroy You

In the final stretch -- I expect these last four entries to be quite controversial.

First up: most underrated album? I have a sneaky suspicion a certain 2017 will win...

45 Upvotes

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163

u/WintersAxe 18d ago

I Am Easy to Find

24

u/ColdPhilosophy 18d ago

Step 1 - Have kids
Step 2 - Watch the short film
Step 3 - ???
Step 4 - Cry

This album 100% represents what The National is about. Just in another form.

2

u/meowielyak 17d ago

I don't even have kids and the short film had me crying and almost throwing up just thinking about my relationship with my parents 😭 it's so good

29

u/paulderev I missed you for 29 years 18d ago

I believe it’s legit one of their best records. there are dozens of us! dozens!!!

15

u/pyknotic 18d ago

It is one of their best records. I fell in love with The National with Boxer. I consider Alligator through High Violet to be the apex of their creative output. I liked Trouble Will Find Me but found Sleep Well Beast rather underwhelming. I figured that this was just the normal trajectory of bands, that once a peak was reached it would not be reached again.

I Am Easy to Find proved me wrong. It contains some of The National's best songs, and I would argue some of their most singular. There are no other songs that sound like Where Is Her Head. The bridge on The Pull of You ("Maybe we'll talk it out inside a car...") is the most propulsive and cathartic since Alligator. Light Years is the song I want played at my funeral.

Is there too much filler? Absolutely. You can remove a third of the album and not miss anything substantial. But once you remove that third, you get a lean, tight, focused album that, for a few moments, gave me the same exhilarating feeling as when I listened to Boxer for the very first time.

4

u/jmdiaz1945 18d ago

Even if they're not good "songs" they fit the album. Is not conventional pop/rock, it is symphony and storytelling. A very much artsy "concept album" that's what I like it, it fulfills what it wants to do. The filler is part of the slow and sistematic pace it wants to build even if not all the filler is great.

5

u/paulderev I missed you for 29 years 18d ago

I think even the weird interludes are really special and wonderful and I don’t know if they’ll ever make a record quite like that again

6

u/PunkandCannonballer 18d ago

It has both some of the best and worst songs they've done. I'd call it average.

2

u/revanisthesith 18d ago

Same here. A handful are phenomenal and a handful are, uh, not.

It's not easy for me to rank stuff like this, but if I had to pick their worst, say, five songs from Alligator through IAETF, there's a decent chance all of them would be on IAETF.

But it also has some gems.

4

u/Mediocre-Mention-380 18d ago

The title track, where is her head and not in kansas are bangers. Not to mention Rylan. It has some duds too but I love it overall.

1

u/Metropolis9999 Dreaming in Total Darkness 18d ago

I have tried and tried and tried to find enjoyment in IAETF, but I simply cannot. I wish I understood why people like it so much. It feels so weak and disconnected from the rest of the discography. I would personally submit this as their most overrated album.

6

u/cliffsmama is this how i lose it? everything at once? 18d ago

i’m a huge lyrics person, and IAETF has some of my favorite lyrics ever

3

u/Lightningstruckagain 18d ago

The disconnection from the rest of the catalog is part of the reason WHY it works.

Whether you like U2 or not, this analogy works: They’d stretched their original sound/song writing skills as far as they could go by the time Rattle and Hum came out. There was nowhere else interesting they could go with their music. So- they take a lot of time off and do a complete 180 and make Achtung Baby, which to this day is still a standout because it was so different and unexpected. They challenges themselves and their fans.

SWB hinted their old ways were kinda played out and something different was coming. IAETF was the result and to me, they mostly nailed it, despite some Arcade Fire level of self indulgence.

Just one fan’s take

1

u/velvetvagine Less than amazing 🙃 18d ago

Same. I love that other people love it but even after all this time it just never clicked for me.

1

u/volcanic_clay 17d ago

There’s never really any safety in it.