The National - First Two Pages... & Laugh Track Album • Page 81

This new album is glorious, and it honestly makes me appreciate Frankenstein more, even if I do ultimately prefer Laugh Track by a little bit.

 

Honestly, having sat with it for a week and then re-introduced Franky and as much as I love the new album, Laugh Track is just like 3-5 minute snippets of National vibes with upfront drums. They could write like 30 songs like this (not including the actual variations like opener, Goodbyes, and Smoke) and they’d all be about this good so long as the drums were there and the Dessners twinkled around. Franky has more variety and feels more like distinct songs versus a bunch of rad National rhythms.

 

I hear you, I just can't shake the feeling that Frankenstein would be infinitely better if the drums were there. The album itself has grown on me over time, but the live versions of the songs absolutely come alive for me and are so much better. They are a great band and I love how they play their instruments - it is such a weird decision to me to sideline extremely talented band members when it comes time to record the album.

The two albums feel very similar to me, and Laugh Track (aside from "Weird Goodbyes") feels a lot like Frankenstein only with the whole band playing their instruments, which is awesome.

 

fully do not agree Frankenstein has more variety lol, that's wild to me

 

Eucalyptus, Tropic Morning News, Once Upon a Poolside, This Isn’t Helping, and New Order T-Shirt are pretty distinct. Everything between Goodbyes and Smoke Detector is like 1.5 vibes explored for 40 minutes. It’s great but it’s not really distinct and varied.

 

if you think Space Invader and Crumble are exploring the same vibes in any way you might need a headphone check lol. all of the other songs are very distinguishable too

 

there are a lot of electronic drums on frankenstein but there are also several instances of live drums (and my favorite thing in the world, live drums played over drum machines), and everyone describes it as if devendorf was "sidelined" but i assume and bet he helped construct those rhythms, whether live or programmed

 

sorry, i feel like i've even brought this up in this thread once already, it's just a pet peeve

 

Devendorf has said like multiple times it was his idea to use the drum machines/electronic kits iirc

 

it can be his idea to do that and people can still prefer when he solely plays on a live kit. it isn’t that complicated

 

I'm unsuccessfully scouring Reddit for an interview/article that I read earlier in the week when the album first dropped, and I believe it was Aaron Dessner and he described the recording sessions for Frankenstein as "compartmentalized" whereas they purposely wanted the band playing together on Laugh Track, and he says they wanted Bryan Devendorf's drumming to play a more crucial role in these songs. I am not able to find the interview to link it though.

 

I will say though that they definitely should augment the programmed drums with a live kit more often on record. Really hits when Bryan does it live.

 

ok well then ppl should just say they like live drums and hate electronic ones. they’d be wrong and stupid but it wouldn’t be a false narrative about one member not getting to play his “real” instrument

 

I definitely prefer live drums. Bryan Devendorf's live drumming is one of the key aspects of their music that drew me in at first and made me fall in love over the years. I think this is why the release of Laugh Track has helped me to appreciate Frankenstein more - the songs mine a similar creative vein but with that key (for me) piece of their sound back in place.

 

I wouldn’t go so far as to say people who prefer the one approach to the drums over the other are dumb or whatever, lol. Especially with this band. I get it, even if I don’t personally relate.

But, like, the ~*discourse*~ around the drumming sure has been annoying, imo!

 

And as someone who knows what Bryan's style is like and also knows what goes into it/how to play a bunch of National songs on drums etc. the programmed parts are still VERY him.

 

I’LL FLUFF THE FEATHERS I’LL PUNCH THE NUMBERS

 

Look, I am trying to avoid talking about the drumming too much because many, many people on here have complained about the discourse around it and complained about the people saying they prefer live drums to the programmed ones, and comments like this

make me feel like I can't mention the drumming ever again, but the programmed drums on "Weird Goodbyes" sound to me like they could have been programmed by literally anyone. That song sounds to me like Bryan Devendorf was not part of the creative process at all. I am sure he probably was given what they have all said in interviews, but it really doesn't sound like it to me.

At the end of the day, the instrumentation on 11/12ths of Laugh Track is way more of what I love about them and we fans were lucky enough to get two very good full length albums in the same year from a band that had mentioned multiple times that they were close to hanging it up completely.

 

It’s okay to not like certain drumming choices but I think it’s weird to assume Bryan wasn’t involved in those choices.

 

let's fire up Another Discourse again instead: I'm listening to IAETF again and I have no idea how an album with Quiet Light, Oblivions, Where is Her Head, So Far So Fast, Rylan etc etc isn't considered one of their best. album fucking hits

 

Because they cut down the 10-minute "Not In Kansas" with 17 additional stanzas and spliced the choral version of "Noble Experiment" into the middle of it!

 

thank you, love you

 

I'm not sure I need NIK to be 10 minutes lol but the gospel part has aged pretty corny to me, it's one of the only parts of that album I don't like. probably would've taken a few more verses in their place

 

I think Matt Berninger and I were the only two people on earth who wanted the 10-minute long version.

 

IAETF is a phenomenal winter album and it's getting to be that time again.