“If the National are a one trick pony, their trick is giving blowjobs.” That’s right. Brandon took the “one trick pony” metaphor a step further and maybe a step too far. That, at the end of an already long-ass post. Dude had a lot to say. Most of it’s interesting though, I promise.
From: Brandon Hall
To: Cutter Davis
I must say, Cutter, you make a compelling argument. After reading your post and listening to the album a couple more times, I was ready to jump on board. You’re right, there’s not really a bad song on the album, not a single song I would deign to skip. And for that matter, I don’t think I was “disparaging the album.”
I really like how the fire motif that runs through the album, starting with the first track, “A Candle’s Fire,” which, he reminds us, “is just a flame.” Easily extinguished, like fame, like love. It continues in “Payne’s Bay” (“I can’t put on your fire”), and in “The Peacock” (“Infernal heat can’t take the sound in here”). And along with this motif is the constant, overbearing sense of cold – “East Harlem” (“The sound of your breath in the cold”), “Payne’s Bay” (“I can’t belong to the winter”), “Vagabond” (“Now as the air grows cold”), and, again, “The Peacock” (“There’s an answer for I’m cold again”). This almost doesn’t do it justice, because that feeling of cold is overbearing throughout the album – appropriate given the miserable winter New York went through while he was writing and recording. The fire and heat that appears occasionally through The Rip Tide seem only to serve as ephemeral breaks in the isolating cold, fleeting respites that ultimately fail to break the wintery oppression.
So I like all of that. I really like the album. But then do you know what I did? I put on Flying Club Cup and remembered, “Oh, right. Zach Condon can do amazing things. He can write monumental, sweepingly romantic songs with bombast and energy and, yes, melodrama.” A lot of people I don’t consider audiophiles or indie-nerds have exclaimed excitement about “the new Beirut.” They don’t read Pitchfork or Stereogum. I would be surprised if most of them knew who Neutral Milk Hotel was. But they’re pumped for Beirut. That’s a sign of a dude that’s gone mainstream. Throw him on an iPod commercial and it’ll be over. You know why so many people know who this kid is? Flying Club Cup.
That puppy just sweeps you off your feet and carries you away. And you know me, Cutter. I’m a hopeless romantic. I want to be swept off my feet!
I do really like The Rip Tide. But it’s a minor work. Twenty-five years from now, if Condon is still making music, or even if he’s not, we’ll look back on his career, and a lot of attention will be paid to Flying Club Cup while The Rip Tide will be the “transition album” or the “follow-up album” if it’s remembered at all. And were the two albums switched, I doubt that half as many people would be excited for his third LP.
But I want to briefly talk about One Trick Ponies, because I think that’s an interesting topic in popular music. A great painter, for example, has the skills and ability to paint in all styles, to mimic all the greats. Salvador Dalí or Picaso, for example, could paint in any style and after achieving a mastery of their art, moved to explore their own voices. Sufjan Stevens, for one, has proven an ability to do the same in music. He can out ballad the balladeers, out glitch the electro-produces, out rock the shoegazers, out indie the indie kids. He is, beyond a doubt, a master and could never be called a one trick pony at this point.
As for Beirut, this video of them joining The National on stage to sing “Fake Empire” struck me:
Condon just bludgeons the shit out of that song with his trademark vocal warble. Is that the only way he can sing? Because really, for that song, listen to The National’s Matt Berninger and follow him! If you’re going to accompany someone else on his song, you should be able to do the song justice by singing appropriately. It bothered the hell out of me, because, as you know, The National are kind of my favorite band and that song’s fucking awesome and Condon couldn’t just harmonize and sing it straight. He had to do his Beirut thing. But maybe that’s all he can do.
I mean, even if your pony does back flips, eventually you want to see it do something else, right? Even a back flipping pony gets old.
But for that matter, and this confuses me a bit, the National don’t really switch it up on every album, either. Since Alligator, the National sound like the National. I mean I like Alligator the best, but I can pretty much listen to any of their albums over and over again without tiring of it. And I don’t know why. I don’t know why I cut The National more slack than I’m willing to cut anyone else. Of course, not every other band has two classically trained guitarists writing their music. And they’re meticulous enough that they can pretty much guarantee a good to great album, if not a transcendent one, every time. But maybe it’s just because as objective as I want to be, I can still be a bit of a fan-boy.
If the National are a one trick pony, their trick is giving blowjobs, apparently. Because that never gets old!
“What would you ask a campfire,”
Brandon
AudioVole 
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