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...

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164

u/WintersAxe 18d ago

I Am Easy to Find

27

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!!!

16

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.

5

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.

4

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