May 2008

I know we promised a moratorium on baseball stories here, but we couldn’t pass on telling you about The Baseball Project – the all-star collaboration between R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Scott

Over the past couple of months, I’ve wanted to write something about a growing obsession, which is The National’s May 2007 release, Boxer. The question was “what is relevant about writing about an album that came out an entire year ago that most people already know all about?”

Well, nothing really, but I revisited some reviews – in particular, the original May 2007 review on Pitchfork – and it struck a chord. This review by Steve Deusner, among about a million others, deemed the album, like its predecessor Alligator, a “grower” – meaning it grows on the listener as they embrace the quirky lyrical stylings and subtle nuances of the instrumentation. It’s kind of a bunk term, but whatever.

Boxer is the album equivalent to the Cable Guy, or as I like to call it, the “Mustache Movie.” It gets more powerful every time you see it. Anyway, this disc not only reels in the listener over time, but it continues to develop a new fan base as well, because it hooks people in like junkies and coverts them into passionate devotees who make it their mission to spread the word.

Thus, I suppose it is somewhat relevant to revisit the album a year later, because at least in this case, it really is a grower. So, what is it about Boxer and the National in general that has this effect on people?

READ ON for Rupert’s seven reasons why Boxer rules…

Last week, Some Dude mentioned the crazy spreadsheet goin’ round with links to downloads of hundreds of Phish shows. Our friend Bizarro Jerry is the guy behind the uploads, and