Album Rating: 4.5

Which is totally fair, just by nature of their communicative purposes, spoken language evolves a lot more quickly than written language

Album Rating: 2.5

the way i personally see it is that prescriptive rules about lexical choice are needless, but i'm less concerned about conventions like the oxford comma

Album Rating: 4.5

Exactly, like creating new meanings vs. changing the existent meaning from one thing to another



Page break edit: TWFM >>>

Album Rating: 4.0

lol my dad was an english teacher and I remember him telling me that it's not actually wrong to say "ain't" and then gave the same explanation as you guys. guess he was right

Album Rating: 2.5

ya. aint nothin wrong with neologisms or non-standard speech

Album Rating: 4.0

"I love my parents, Britney Spears and Mark Zuckerberg."

Thanks to the lack of an Oxford comma, we now need to contemplate whether this person loves their parents as well as both Britney Spears and Mark Zuckerberg, or if they love their parents who happen to be Britney Spears and Mark Zuckerberg.

Album Rating: 4.0

You can usually tell what they meant based on context but the way it reads with an oxford comma is closer to the way someone would say it in actual conversation so it makes sense to use it

Album Rating: 4.0

Rankings >,,,

Album Rating: 4.0

Trouble Will Find Me

High Violet

Boxer

Alligator

Sleep Well Beast

Sad Songs

I Am Easy to Find

s/t

Album Rating: 3.5

Hey who else likes s/t more than sad songs where y'all at I know there's a few of you lurking in the shadows

Album Rating: 3.0

The more I think about it, the more I’m coming around to the idea that this marked the start of their sharp decline.

We all should’ve seen it coming, in fact I think some did. It just took me a long time to fully appreciate HV/TWF and presumed this would follow a similar path. Maybe it still can, but I wouldn’t put money on it now. Too many bells and whistles here, occasionally lacking subtlety altogether, ‘arty‘ embellishments covering up waning song-writing chops. This is dangerously close to IAETF the prequel save for a few tracks.

Album Rating: 4.5

'The more I think about it, the more I’m coming around to the idea that this marked the start of their sharp decline.'



It marked their decline but people point to the wrong songs as being the evidence.



People will say 'Turtleneck', 'Day I Die' or the title track - and while the first two aren't classics they actually were slightly off failed worthy efforts and harmless. The title track was actually classic and I would have taken half the next album in that style - that would have been an interesting and appropriate direction for an older National to go.



This album has five really good National songs, and a few other solid ones. 'Easy to Find' has no really good songs, even the best songs are about the level of 'Born to Beg' on this.



'Empire Line' and 'I'll Destroy You' (with maybe 'Dark Side of the Gym') were actually the worry, mostly boring songs hidden by the arrangements, epic orchestral flourishes, showy big drums or whatever. They weren't just writing underperforming songs...they were hiding/burying them, and the next album would be 75% that instead of 25% that.

Album Rating: 3.0

I’d add ‘System’ and Guilty Party to that list. I’m not a fan of Turtleneck, I don’t think the style really suits them this late into their careers. The main guitar parts are a tad cringeworthy.

Agree on the t/t though, would’ve preferred for them to build upon some of those ideas rather than the direction they took with IAETF.

Album Rating: 4.5

'System' and 'Guilty Party' I really like, maybe slightly over egged but it suits them better

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

With the exception of “Turtleneck” (and that barely an exception because it’s clearly a sort of intentional goof), this is pretty much straight classic Natty for me. The first 8 tracks on their own are an ever so slight step down I guess but the final four tracks even things out and really seal the deal, one of the best runs in the discog.

Album Rating: 4.5

I like the first four and last four songs about evenly (about a 4.5 out of 5 level overall).



The middle four songs are all a bit duff (more a 3 out of 5 level) so I almost treat this as an old fashioned 8 song album



I rate the album a 4.5 because it's The National and because of the quality of the good stuff, I don't take many marks off for poor patches on albums as long as there's a solid amount of good

Album Rating: 4.0

It's hard/weird to call this the beginning of a decline simply because our favorite album precedes it, especially when that collection of albums includes greatness such as TWFM, ALLIGATOR, BOXER, HIGH VIOLET. I'm probably not making sense, but in terms of quality this is still on par with those albums imo, just directionally a bit different which I think is often perceived as a drop on quality. I AM EASY TO FIND, on the other hand, and while I still generally *like* the album, is definitely a drop in quality, in terms of variation, arrangements, lyricism, etc., all of it.



Like, there are drops in quality, and then there are just divergences that still maintain quality but are often outcast because they're different and then subsequently viewed as the start of a drop in quality especially when an *actual* drop in quality happens on the subsequent album.



Hell maybe I'm talking out of my ass. But I do know several people who consider this their absolute favorite National album. I know no one who feels that way about I AM EASY TO FIND, for example.

Album Rating: 5.0

This is my second favorite National

Album Rating: 4.5

tect - I think I'm saying this is the start of a decline because it has two or three songs that sound like the approach of 'Easy to Find' so this is sort of a stepping stone to Dullsville

Album Rating: 3.0

I consider this a drop in quality. I mean maaaaybe this isn’t catered for me like their previous run, but I also don’t consider the band to be ‘catered’ to me in general (if that makes sense). They succeeded in creating some all-time classics despite this.

I do understand there’s a difference, yet it can be difficult to separate the two and is a somewhat clinical way of viewing music in general.