#2 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — The National

January 30, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

First Two Pages of Frankenstein and Laugh Track by The National

The National are back near the top of the Top 31, surprising no one. Unbelievably, it’s been four years since they released their last album, the fantastic I Am Easy To Find, in 2019 (#6 that year). Granted, a lot of non-music stuff happened in those ensuing years (remember Covid?). Additionally, a lot of tangential work to The National came out during this period of “down time”: Taylor Swift’s Aaron Dessner-produced albums folklore and evermore came out in 2020 (#4 that year); lead singer Matt Berninger released his solo album, Serpentine Prison, that same year (#8); Aaron Dessner’s not-a-band-but-more-a-“project” collaboration with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver called Big Red Machine released How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? in 2021 (#2)¹ 2022 was the only year in that four-year span that lacked music to fill the massive void left by having no new album by the National.

The band has made up for that time by releasing two great new albums in 2023, First Two Page of Frankenstein on April 28, and Laugh Track on September 18. These two albums more than make up for “lost” time. The band prepared us fans for Frankenstein by putting out four singles between January 18 and the album’s release three months later. Laugh Track, on the other hand, was a complete surprise (aside from the inclusion of Bon Iver collaboration, “Weird Goodbyes,” which was originally released in August 2022).

The National have been long-time staples here on the Bacon Review. Including the albums mentioned above, they’ve always produced music that has been in my Top 10: Sleep Well Beast was #4 in 2017, Trouble Will Find Me was #2 in 2013, and High Violet inadvertently prevented all future albums from defaulting into the top spot by being #1 in 2010.

Where Easy To Find was a true departure for the band, seeing Berlinger relinquish the lead-singer role to a bevy of female guest stars on a number of songs, Frankenstein and Laugh Track are a return to form, quintessential National albums. There are some repeat guest stars here (the aforementioned Justin Vernon, and Sufjan Stevens), and some new great ones as well. Phoebe Bridgers sings beautiful harmonies on three songs across the two albums. Rosanne Cash shows up on “Crumble” from Laugh Track. And by far the biggest name, the Taylor Swift, joins Berlinger on the absolutely perfect duet called “The Alcott” on Frankenstein. After having spent a long time singing the Vernon/Swift duet “Exile” from her album folklore, I am glad my 6-year-old daughter and I have a Berninger/Swift duet to sink our teeth into for Car Karaoke²

Check out the video above, for “Your Mind is Not Your Friend,” one of the songs Phoebe Bridgers is on. The band have released a number of other nice music videos from the two albums, but this one, directed by Bridgers’ brother Jackson, really gets to the heart of what makes the band special. Over National-trademarked Sad Dad lyrics about trying to pull yourself out of depression, Matt Berninger and his brother Tom cavort around comically. Tom shows the depressive side of Matt’s lyrics literally, moping around and being sad, and Matt portrays the happy side of his brain, with flowers attached to his suit as he leads Tom around a park playground. Bridgers makes a brief appearance, appearing in the playground to take her character’s baby away from the grown men playing on the structures. That’s The National to a tee: cathartic depression. And that’s why I love them.

You can watch the rest of the videos they’ve released, too:

“Eucalyptus”
“Dreaming”
“Laugh Track” featuring Phoebe Bridgers
“Alphabet City”
“Deep End (Paul’s in Pieces)”
“Space Invader”

These are The National’s ninth and tenth albums in 24 years. It is now officially impossible to say any one of those albums is their best, as the answer will shift from day to day. No other band in my lifetime has been able to put out as much consistently great music as these five men have. Every new album they put out, I feel “whelp, this must be it, no way they can keep up this pace,” and every time I’m proven wrong. Who knows what’s next for the band? Whatever it is, it will be amazing.

^{1. Dessner produced Ed Sheeran’s 2023 album, _–_ (otherwise known as “Subtract”), which I’m listening to for the first time as I’m writing these words – too late to include in the Top 31, and too early to say if I would have even tried to include it. If it’s anything like his collaboration with Taylor Swift, I’ll have made a huge mistake not hearing it earlier. (Update – still listening, but struggling. In Swift’s Dessner-produced albums, there’s an easily recognizable Dessner influence. Despite him having touched every song on Sheeran’s album, Ed’s voice and lyrics pull things far enough away from anything related to The National that I lose the thread entirely.)↩}
^{2. If you want a real thrill as a parent, sing fantastic songs as a duet with them on repeat while driving around town. Rarely can I get through “The Alcott” with my daughter without choking up.↩}

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#8 on the 2023 Bacon Top 31 — Sufjan Stevens

January 24, 2024 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Javelin by Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan Stevens has led many musical lifetimes in his 48 years on this earth. He released his debut album when he was just under 25 years old, in 2000. His third album, 2003’s Michigan, was the first of his that I heard, and it established Stevens as a talented singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist (he played no less than 18 different instruments on the album). It was his sixth album, Illinois, that saw his fame rise to the highest of highs. The album was recognized as “best of the decade” by a number of publications (and I generally concur). Those six albums constitute his first “lifetime,” creating lush, Spector-like arrangements on top of his hushed falsetto singing songs about inanimate objects, geographic locations, and even serial killers — rarely turning the lens inward on himself.

The next ten years produced only one album, The Age of Adz, which came in at #3 in 2010. This album is his second “lifetime,” creating what I believe is his best record, but one that is confrontational, noise-laden, and rich to extravagance. It also marked a distinct shift in subject matter in his lyrics, where he chose to focus inward, blatantly focusing on his emotions and health concerns (he’d been suffering through a mysterious debilitating viral infection that affected his nervous system and caused chronic pain).

Carrie & Lowell, his seventh album, came out in 2015 (#4). It started yet another chapter in his musical progression, staying focused inward on deeply personal subjects such as the death of his mother Carrie and his relationship with her husband, Stevens’ stepfather Lowell Brams. Stevens attributes a lot of his love of music and musicianship to Brams, who came into his life when he was young. Carrie & Lowell, laden with quiet, whispered vocals throughout, is a complete departure from Adz. Rather than pushing you away from the speaker with loud noise-driven over-layered music, Lowell forces you to lean in closely.

The next five albums, a series of extended collaborations, contemplative orchestration, and less evocative lyrics, form the fourth chapter: Planetarium (with Nico Muhly, the National’s Bryce Dessner and James McAlister) (#30 in 2017), Aporia (with Lowell Brams) in 2020, The Ascension (#9) in 2020, Convocations in 2021, and A Beginner’s Mind (with Angelo de Augustine) (#29) in 2021.

And now, two years after that, we find Sufjans writing a new masterpiece, learning from the many chapters of his musical history, and forming way may become known as his best yet, with Javelin. Lyrically and musically, the album picks the best parts of The Age of Adz and Carrie & Lowell and creates something wholly new. Stevens dedicated the album to “the light of my life, my beloved partner and best friend Evans Richardson, who passed away in April.”

A month prior to album release, Stevens announced on Instagram that he had been hospitalized for a debilitating illness called Guillain–Barré syndrome, a fast-moving autoimmune disorder in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the peripheral nerves. Stevens “woke up one morning and couldn’t walk. My hands, arms and legs were numb and tingling and I had no strength, no feeling, no mobility.” Stevens was sent home to continue his recovery on the day Javelin was released.

While not directly about these events, Javelin feels like Stevens’ most intimate album. Aside from backing vocals provided by others on most tracks, and longtime friend and collaborator Bryce Dessner’s guitar on track 9, lovingly called “Shit Talk,” Stevens performed every instrument, and recorded and mixed every song in his home studio. At times quiet like Lowell, and others bombastic like Adz, I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this may be the best manifestation of Stevens’ talent. It’s a testament to the number of great albums from 2023 that pushes this phenomenal work down to #8.

No matter what level of fan or non-fan of Sufjan Stevens’ work you’ve been in the past, Javelin is for you. It’s the best place to start a new obsession, or to put the cherry on the top of one you’ve already been building (like me).

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#7 on the 2018 Bacon Top 31 — Cat Power

January 25, 2019 by Royal Stuart

Wanderer by Cat Power

Cat Power has been soothing the world with her sultry voice for over twenty years, since her debut Dear Sir in 1995. The trajectory of her creative output has steadily slowed since that first album, having three releases between 1995-1996, then two releases two years apart, two releases three years apart, one four years after that, and then finally Wanderer, her tenth album, six years later. Despite ten albums in 23 years, only two of those have been released since the Top 31 began in 2009, and I don’t think I’ve once mentioned her in that span. Her 2012 album, Sun, did not impress me. And yet, I’ve listened to her music pretty regularly since her critically-acclaimed 1998 breakthrough album, Moon Pix, recorded with a couple members of the Dirty Three to great effect. She did have a track on the oft-mentioned Dessner-brother produced Red Hot compilation Dark Was the Night, which was #10 in 2009, and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to discussing Cat Power.

This post has been a long-time coming, I suppose. Her real name is Chan Marshall, and apparently she was discovered opening for Liz Phair in 1993 by members of Sonic Youth and Two Dollar Guitar. That’s a good way to get started on the right foot in the music business. Since the above-mentioned Moon Pix she’s had a slew of amazing albums that all would have been on the Top 31 had it existed, including 2003’s You Are Free (which happens to feature Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder) and The Greatest in 2006 (featuring phenomenal Mempis-based studio musicians for an entirely unique feel).

Marshall has a way of stripping down a song to its bare essence, drawing you ever closer to the speaker in an attempt to hear the parting of her lips and the dancing of her tongue on the back of her teeth. In addition to her own fantastic songs, she is the master of the cover, having released two full albums of covers (The Covers Record in 2000 and Jukebox in 2008). Her gift is to make these songs her own, barely recognizable from the original. My favorite track on Wanderer is actually a cover as well, of of Rihanna’s 2012 song “Stay”. You must hear this song — thankfully there’s a video for you to be able to do just that.

The video above, for the song “Woman,” features Lana Del Rey on harmonies and background vocals. It was the first single for this new record, and it does a good job of summing up Cat Power and her ups and downs over the years quite well:

I’m a woman of my word, now haven’t you heard?
My word’s the only thing I’ve ever needed
I’m a woman of my word, now you have heard
My word’s the only thing I truly need

Her word, above all else, is what has carried her through many different phases of her life, and will continue to do so. If you’ve not heard of Cat Power before now, you’ve been living under a rock. Wanderer is a perfect way to get into her, and that album will bleed into her previous records quite nicely. You’d best get started — you have a lot of ground to cover.

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8. Tell Me How You Really Feel by Courtney Barnett
9. The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs by Wye Oak
10. Ruins by First Aid Kit
11. Cocoa Sugar by Young Fathers
12. Loner by Caroline Rose
13. Big Red Machine by Big Red Machine
14. I’ll Be Your Girl by The Decemberists
15. The More I Sleep the Less I Dream by We Were Promised Jetpacks
16. Joy as an Act of Resistance by IDLES
17. Hell-On by Neko Case
18. Superorganism by Superorganism
19. Living in Extraordinary Times by James
20. Thank You for Today by Death Cab for Cutie
21. Black Panther: The Album by Kendrick Lamar
22. Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film) by Thom Yorke
23. Merrie Land by The Good, the Bad & the Queen
24. Room 25 by Noname
25. WARM by Jeff Tweedy
26. God's Favorite Customer by Father John Misty
27. Vessel by Frankie Cosmos
28. For Ever by Jungle
29. Twerp Verse by Speedy Ortiz
30. Remain in Light by Angélique Kidjo
31. This One’s for the Dancer & This One’s for the Dancer’s Bouquet by Moonface

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#30 on the 2017 Bacon Top 31

January 02, 2018 by Royal Stuart

Planetarium by Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, & James McAlister

Through no fault of its own, this album is merely “interesting,” not phenomenal. I believe it’s hard to collaborate when you’re a fairly big name on your own — as the men in this “supergroup” are, especially Sufjan Stevens and Bryce Dessner (lead guitarist from The National), both of whom have appeared on the Bacon Top 31 numerous times over the years. These artists must find it difficult to create something together that is on par with what they’ve created on their own prior to the collaboration. I’m sure there’s a great supergroup collaboration out there that I’m forgetting — one better than the sum of its parts — but it escapes me. It seems that the supergroup’s output is always going to be worse on the whole.

Be that as it may, Planetarium is worth repeated listening. On its surface, it sounds like an extension of my favorite Sufjan album, The Age of Adz (#3 in 2010), which makes sense given that these songs were originally written back in 2011. It’s difficult to pick out Dessner’s guitar work, but Sufjan is unmistakeable on the handful of songs on which he sings. And I’m unfamiliar with the work of contemporary classical music composer Nico Muhly or percussionist James McAlister.

Between the nice songs with Sufjan vocals are some meandering, orchestral oddities that oscillate from darkness and foreboding to light and airy, without providing much substance to speak of. And that is why we find the album here, near the bottom of the Top 31. Do be sure to check out the Sufjan creation linked in the video above; the man is a genius of both song and visuals. And while this album may not be the best of his output, give it a listen yourself and let me know what you think.

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31. A Moment Apart by Odesza

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