The National Continues to Push the Envelope

Written by Jon Williams

Last week the indie rock band the National thrilled fans worldwide with the release of their ninth full-length album, First Two Pages of Frankenstein. The title was created by frontman Matt Berninger. Struggling to write lyrics for a new album, he turned to his bookshelf for inspiration and found a handful of words and phrases that spoke to him in Mary Shelley’s classic novel. It was the breakthrough he needed. The result is an 11-track disc that features contributions from Sufjan Stevens, Phoebe Bridgers, and Taylor Swift.

 
Although the members (Berninger [vocals], brothers Scott [bass] and Bryan Devendorf [drums], and twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner [guitar/piano]) all grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, the band formed in Brooklyn in 1999. They released two albums (The National and Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers) and an EP (Cherry Tree) as they honed their craft and refined their sound.
 
After signing with Beggars Banquet Records in 2004, the National hit their stride. In 2005, Alligator raised their profile by appearing on several publications’ lists of albums of the year (and eventually the decade). They saw similar critical acclaim from the breakout album Boxer in 2007, and skyrocketed into the public consciousness when an instrumental version of “Fake Empire” was used in Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign for the presidency. They followed that up in 2010 with High Violet, and their tour in support of that album was chronicled in the 2013 documentary Mistaken for Strangers (currently unavailable) made by Tom Berninger, Matt’s brother.
 
Now bona fide indie darlings, their music began to show up in more and more places, including over the closing credits of an episode of Game of Thrones, the Boardwalk Empire soundtrack, and on The Bob’s Burgers Music Album. They scored their first Grammy nomination for 2013’s Trouble Will Find Me, and won Best Alternative Music Album for the 2017 follow-up, Sleep Well Beast. Then, instead of taking a break as they had planned, they came back quickly, in 2019, with I Am Easy to Find, a collaboration with director Mike Mills, who used the album’s soundscape as the background for a short film of the same name.
 
The band hasn’t been idle since. They wrote the music for the 2021 film Cyrano, which features their single “Somebody Desperate.” They’ve also kept busy individually with side projects, some of which have been quite notable. In 2020 Matt Berninger released a solo album, Serpentine Prison. Aaron’s high-profile projects included cowriting and coproducing Taylor Swift’s Grammy-winning album folklore and its follow-up, evermore (which featured the National on the track “Coney Island”), as well as Ed Sheeran’s latest, among several others. He also recorded an album (also featuring a Taylor Swift appearance) with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon as Big Red Machine, How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?
 
And we may hear more from the National as they kick off a world tour this month. Members of the band have said they wrote a lot of good songs that didn’t make the new album, and hinted that it may be released soon in some form. In the meantime, fans new and old have plenty of music to dig into. Click the links above for their albums, or SmartBrowse on our website for more.

New Music on the Horizon from Taylor Swift

Written by Jon Williams

Taylor Swift has had social media buzzing lately. Starting on April 13, each day she posted a cryptic photo to her Twitter and Instagram accounts with the caption “4.26.” It culminated on Thursday with the unveiling of a butterfly mural by artist Kelsey Montague at Nashville’s famed Gulch neighborhood, and the wait ended at midnight with the release of her new video and single, “Me!” Full details on her forthcoming seventh album haven’t yet been announced, but she has assured fans that it will be releasing soon.

Swift is hardly a stranger to buzz, as she’s been a sensation for most of her life. Developing a passion for music at a young age, she signed her first record deal when she was just fourteen years old. After developing her songwriting voice and her musical chops, she burst onto the country music scene in 2006 with her self-titled debut album at the age of sixteen. While it never made to the top of the U.S. album charts (it peaked at #5), its staying power made it the longest-charting album of the 2000s, and it has been certified 7X platinum. She followed that up in 2008 with Fearless, a diamond-selling monster hit that won two Grammy Awards (including Album of the Year) and made her a bona fide star. Then two years later, in 2010, came Speak Now, which sold more than a million copies in its first week alone and has since gone platinum six times over.

Through her first three albums, Swift’s sound was primarily country, with more and more pop sensibility being added on each disc. That pop sound came even more into the forefront on 2012’s Red, another multiplatinum-selling success. She left the country sound behind altogether on her fifth album, 1989, and was rewarded with a 9X platinum smash hit that gave her a second Album of the Year Grammy and which was covered in its entirety by Ryan Adams. She gave her pop sound a darker edge on 2017’s Reputation, which is her most recent album release leading into her much-anticipated seventh. If the candy-colored video and bright tones of “Me!” are any indication, the tone of her upcoming album will be a 180-degree departure from Reputation.

As if her stellar music career weren’t enough, Swift has also dabbled in the acting side of the entertainment industry. She started with a role in a 2009 episode of CSI, and made her feature film debut as part of the ensemble cast of 2010’s Valentine’s Day. In 2012 she voiced the character of Audrey in the animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. She returned to TV for an episode of New Girl in 2013, and appeared in the 2014 adaptation of the beloved YA novel The Giver. She has taken a break since then, but will be starring alongside such names as Idris Elba, Rebel Wilson, and Ian McKellen in the upcoming movie version of Cats, coming to theaters this December.

Taylor Swift’s new album will be one of the biggest music releases of the year. Your patrons will be looking for it as soon as it is released, and her back catalog will be in demand as well. Stay tuned for more information on the album as it becomes available, and SmartBrowse her name on our website for live albums, karaoke and lullaby discs, bio videos, and more. Also, make sure to let your patrons know that her music and plenty of other content is available for checkout from hoopla digital, all with no waiting or late fees!

Taylor Swift to Act in The Giver Adaptation

Written by Jon Williams

Country-pop starlet Taylor Swift is taking her talents to the silver screen once again. It was recently announced that the singer would join the adaptation of Lois Lowry’s young adult novel The Giver. The cast already includes such notable names as Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, Katie Holmes, and Alexander Skarsgard.

The Giver was originally published in 1993, to much acclaim. Set in a society in which emotion has been removed, it tells the story of Jonas, the “Receiver of Memory,” a young boy who holds the memories of a time when emotion still held sway, in case that experience is ever needed. The book won the coveted Newbery Medal in 1994. It was Lowry’s second time receiving the award; she won it first for 1989’s Number the Stars. She has since followed up The Giver with three loosely related novels: Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son.

Although it seems like she’s been around forever, Swift is still just 23 years old. She broke out in a big way in 2006, when she was sixteen. Her first single “Tim McGraw” touched a chord with teenagers all over the world, and her eponymous debut album spent 24 weeks atop Billboard’s country chart and went platinum many times over. Since then she’s become a bona fide sensation, scoring similar success with each following album: Fearless, Speak Now, and Red.

Obviously, though, music isn’t Swift’s only artistic interest. After appearing in an episode of CSI and hosting Saturday Night Live in 2009, she made her full-fledged acting debut in 2010’s ensemble romcom Valentine’s Day (and also contributed two songs to the soundtrack). In 2012, she voiced the character Audrey in the animated feature The Lorax. Most recently she guest starred in an episode of New Girl that aired in May. The Giver will be her first acting work since then.

The Giver is a popular book for young adults, and Taylor Swift’s involvement in the movie is sure to drive them into a frenzy. Be sure to have the audiobook on hand for those who can’t wait until August of next year, when the movie is scheduled to be released.

Civil Wars on Hiatus, Release Album Anyway

Written by Jon Williams

On Tuesday, the Civil Wars released their sophomore album, the self-titled The Civil Wars, despite the duo being on indefinite hiatus.

Singer-songwriters Joy Williams and John Paul White were both working on solo careers when they met at a writing session in 2008 and decided to pair up. After two digital EPs were released online, their full-length album debut Barton Hollow came out in February of 2011. The album was given a boost by the single “Poison and Wine,” which appeared on the hit TV show Grey’s Anatomy, and yet another boost when country superstar Taylor Swift announced her love for their music. Riding this wave of support, the album won two Grammy Awards, for Best Folk Album and Best Performance by a Country Duo/Group.

Williams and White struck up a friendship with Swift, and the three of them recorded a single, “Safe and Sound,” that appeared on the soundtrack for The Hunger Games, along with another Civil Wars tune. With a great deal of critical and commercial success, the duo seemed to be on top of the music world. In November of 2012, though, they announced their hiatus. It was during the period leading up to this announcement that they recorded their second album.

While undoubtedly difficult, it’s not exactly uncommon for bands to record together during times of internal turmoil. The stories are legendary, for instance, of the discord among the members of the Beatles as they recorded such work as the White Album and Abbey Road, some of their finest work. Here are a few other bands nearly as famous for their internal strife as they are for their music.

The Beach Boys: Primary members Brian Wilson, Mike Love, and Al Jardine have been feuding off and on (mostly on) for decades. In 2012 they got together for a reunion tour and a new album, That’s Why God Made the Radio; the future of the legendary band is up in the air.

Guns N’ Roses: To an outsider, it would appear as though lead singer Axl Rose isn’t exactly the easiest guy in the world to get along with. After the tension between Rose and guitarist Slash finally dissolved the band’s most well-known version, it would take fifteen years and a number of lineup changes before Chinese Democracy was finally unleashed on the world in 2008.

Van Halen: The band was named after brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen, the band’s guitarist and drummer, but in the beginning most of the attention was focused on flashy frontman David Lee Roth. This caused friction that led to Roth being replaced with Sammy Hagar in 1985. After Hagar quit/was fired in 1996, the band went through singer turmoil for years before eventually reuniting with Roth for A Different Kind of Truth in 2012. In the meantime, they also picked up another Van Halen, firing original bassist Michael Anthony and replacing him with Eddie’s son Wolfgang.

Oasis: Unlike Van Halen, in which a pair of brothers stood united as they formed and reformed the rest of the band around them, the conflict in Oasis was between a pair of brothers. Singer Liam Gallagher and guitarist Noel Gallagher had a history of being unable to get along, sometimes to the point of violence. It reached a head in 2009, when Noel left the band and formed Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, while Liam and the rest of the band stayed together under the moniker Beady Eye.