I keep thinking about that interview Robert Downey Jr. did earlier this year where he ran through a list of his own movies saying which ones were merely “content” (we can all make educated guesses here as to which titles he chose, though I think it was reassuring to hear an integral gear in the Marvel machine acknowledge the chasm between Iron Man and Short Cuts). I’m sure there’s a broader conversation to be had here about audience expectations versus artistic integrity in an era where, say, a two-year gap between albums for a musician quietly causes alarm within the current content-mill conditions of the music industry, but maybe a brief news post isn’t the best place to have that.
This is all to say that it was a bit unexpected to hear The National—a band that hews much closer to Altman than to Favreau when it comes to art cred—announce at their annual Homecoming Festival this weekend that they already had their follow-up to this past April’s First Two Pages of Frankenstein ready to go. True to their word, we woke up this morning to find Laugh Track, an LP featuring material originally written during the Frankenstein sessions and billed as a companion piece to that record, up on streaming services. In place of Frankestein’s meticulous cohesion, Laugh Track has a bit of a “B-sides collection” feel to it (it even includes last year’s loosie Bon Iver collab “Weird Goodbyes,” as well as an unused track with Frankenstein guest Phoebe Bridgers)—or at least a more road-tested version of its A-sides befitting a broader demographic of the massive audience they’ve accumulated over the years. Either way the release feels more like an act of celebration than one of industry pressure—let alone of “content” production.
And the band has plenty more touring to do before wrapping up their Frankenstein era, with dates across the globe planned for the rest of the year and even through early 2024. Find those dates here, and check out Laugh Track (which also notably includes a song with Rosanne Cash) for yourself below.
