I Am Easy to Find | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | May 17, 2019 | |||
Studio | Long Pond (Hudson Valley, New York)
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Length | 63:35 | |||
Label | 4AD | |||
Producer |
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The National chronology | ||||
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Singles from I Am Easy to Find | ||||
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I Am Easy to Find is the eighth studio album by American indie rock band The National, released on May 17, 2019, via 4AD. [1] The follow-up to the band's 2017 album, Sleep Well Beast , it was supported by the lead single, "You Had Your Soul with You", and accompanied by a short film of the same name, directed by Mike Mills and starring Alicia Vikander. [2] [3] Vikander is also featured on the album cover. A trailer was released for the companion film along with the announcement of the album. [4] A tour promoting the album began in June 2019. [5]
The bulk of the album was recorded at Long Pond studio in Hudson Valley, New York. Parts were recorded in other cities, including Paris, Berlin, Dublin, Cincinnati, Austin, and Brooklyn. [1] The album and film, while having influenced each other, were essentially made separately. A press release stated that the album "is not the soundtrack" for the film; the idea for the album itself came after the film was shot. [1]
The album features female vocalists including Lisa Hannigan, Sharon Van Etten, Mina Tindle, Gail Ann Dorsey, Kate Stables, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. [4]
Aggregate scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AnyDecentMusic? | 7.7/10 [6] |
Metacritic | 81/100 [7] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [8] |
And It Don't Stop | A− [9] |
The Guardian | [10] |
The Independent | [11] |
Mojo | [12] |
NME | [13] |
Pitchfork | 7.6/10 [14] |
Q | [15] |
Rolling Stone | [16] |
The Times | [17] |
I Am Easy to Find was met with universal acclaim, receiving a score of 81 on Metacritic, the review aggregating site. [7] Reviewing in his Substack-published "Consumer Guide" column, Robert Christgau said that "almost every track is open to substantive female input on a musical whole that feels consistently interactive and empathetic and also not so glum—even when you can’t pin down exact meanings, it makes love sound possible." [9] More negative critics, such as The Observer 's Phil Mongredien, complained about the album's flatness and inaccessibility. [18]
Publication | Accolade | Rank | Ref. |
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The A.V. Club | Top 20 Albums of 2019 | 20 | [19] |
Gothamist | Best Album of 2019 | 7 | [20] |
Louder Than War | Top 50 Albums of 2019 | 11 | [21] |
Magnet Magazine | Top 25 Albums of 2019 | 9 | [22] |
MusicOMH | Top 50 Albums of 2019 | 14 | [23] |
The Skinny | Top Ten Albums of 2019 | 6 | [24] |
All tracks are written by Matt Berninger and produced by Aaron Dessner, unless noted otherwise.
No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Length |
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1. | "You Had Your Soul with You" | Carin Besser | 3:26 | |
2. | "Quiet Light" |
| 4:15 | |
3. | "Roman Holiday" | 3:34 | ||
4. | "Oblivions" |
|
| 4:13 |
5. | "The Pull of You" |
| 3:58 | |
6. | "Hey Rosey" | Besser | 4:14 | |
7. | "I Am Easy to Find" |
| 4:30 | |
8. | "Her Father in the Pool" | Instrumental | B. Dessner | 1:02 |
9. | "Where Is Her Head" |
| 4:41 | |
10. | "Not in Kansas" | 6:44 | ||
11. | "So Far So Fast" |
| 6:36 | |
12. | "Dust Swirls in Strange Light" | Mills | B. Dessner | 3:18 |
13. | "Hairpin Turns" |
|
| 4:27 |
14. | "Rylan" | 3:43 | ||
15. | "Underwater" | Instrumental | B. Dessner | 1:21 |
16. | "Light Years" | 3:33 | ||
Total length: | 63:35 |
Notes
The National – arrangement, performance
Featured vocalists
Technical personnel
Artwork
Additional musicians
| Orchestration
Brooklyn Youth Chorus
|
Director Mike Mills developed a short film based on early clips of the songs featured on the album. As the two projects developed concurrently, the final songs used in each differ from one another.
Mills chose the title for both the short film and the album from a lyric in the song of the same name. The song was originally titled "Washington" before Mills insisted on altering it. [26]
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
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The National is an American rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio, formed in Brooklyn, New York City in 1999. The band consists of Matt Berninger (vocals), twin brothers Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner, as well as brothers Scott Devendorf (bass) and Bryan Devendorf (drums). During live performances, the band are joined by longtime touring members, Ben Lanz and Kyle Resnick. Carin Besser, the wife of Berninger, is not a band member but has written lyrics for the band alongside her husband since its 2007 album Boxer.
Laugh Track is the tenth studio album from American indie rock band The National. The surprise album was released on September 18, 2023, having been announced only days prior. The album's material was mostly written and recorded alongside the band's earlier 2023 album, First Two Pages of Frankenstein, with several songs being re-recorded at producer Tucker Martine's studio after honing their arrangements while on tour in 2023. Preceded by the singles, "Weird Goodbyes", "Alphabet City" and "Space Invader", the album features guest vocal appearances from Justin Vernon, Phoebe Bridgers and Rosanne Cash. Laugh Track has received positive reviews from critics.
Boxer is the fourth studio album by American indie rock band the National, released on May 22, 2007, on Beggars Banquet Records. Following its release, the album debuted at number 68 on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling about 9,500 copies in its first week.
Aaron Brooking Dessner is an American musician. He is best known as a founding member of the rock band The National, with whom he has recorded nine studio albums; a co-founder of the indie rock duo Big Red Machine, teaming with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon; and a collaborator on Taylor Swift's critically acclaimed studio albums Folklore and Evermore, both of which contended for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2021 and 2022, respectively, with the former winning the accolade; as well as The Tortured Poets Department (2024).
Matthew Donald Berninger is an American singer, primarily known as the frontman and lyricist of indie rock band The National. In 2014, he also formed the EL VY project with Brent Knopf of Ramona Falls and Menomena. They released the album Return to the Moon in November 2015. In May 2020, Berninger issued the title track from his solo debut album, Serpentine Prison, released in October 2020.
High Violet is the fifth studio album by The National, which was released on May 10, 2010, in Europe and on May 11, 2010, in North America via 4AD. The band produced the album themselves, assisted by Peter Katis with whom they worked on their previous albums Alligator and Boxer at their own studio in Brooklyn, New York, and at Katis' Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The sculpture on the album cover was created by artist Mark Fox, and is called The Binding Force.
The discography of American indie rock band the National consists of ten studio albums, two extended plays (EPs), thirteen singles and nine music videos. The band's first two albums, were released by Brassland Records. Their next two albums were released by Beggars Banquet Records, and their subsequent albums were released by 4AD.
Trouble Will Find Me is the sixth studio album by American indie rock band the National, released on May 17, 2013, on 4AD.
EL VY is an American indie rock duo that consists of Matt Berninger and Brent Knopf. The duo released their debut album, Return to the Moon, in October 2015.
Day of the Dead is the twenty-fifth compilation release benefiting the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. Featuring fifty-nine exclusive recordings of covers of Grateful Dead songs by a number of independent artists as a tribute to the band, the compilation was released on May 20, 2016, as five CDs, a limited edition vinyl LP box set, and as a digital download. John Carlin, the founder of the Red Hot Organization, was the executive producer for the album. The members of The National first performed with Bob Weir at his Bay Area studio in 2012 as part of the Headcount benefit The Bridge Session. The group's budding friendship with the Dead cofounder pushed them to record the massive Dead tribute.
Planetarium is a collaborative album featuring Bryce Dessner of the indie rock band The National, drummer James McAlister, contemporary classical music composer and arranger Nico Muhly, and singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens. The album was released by 4AD on June 9, 2017. The group announced the recording on March 26, sharing the album's track listing along with the song "Saturn".
Sleep Well Beast is the seventh studio album by the American indie rock band The National, released on September 8, 2017, by 4AD. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2018.
"The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness" is a song by American indie rock band The National. It was released as the lead single for their seventh studio album, Sleep Well Beast, at 12:01 am Eastern Time on 11 May 2017. The song was written by Aaron Dessner, Matt Berninger, and Bryce Dessner and produced by Aaron Dessner. A music video for the song was released on the same day and was directed by Casey Reas. It was the band's first song to appear on any airplay chart in the United States, ultimately topping Billboard's Adult Alternative Songs chart in August 2017 and peaking at No. 33 on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart early the following month. The song is featured in soundtrack of the EA Sports video game FIFA 18.
Big Red Machine is the debut studio album by American musicians Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon as Big Red Machine. Dessner is most famous for being a founding member, instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer for The National, and Vernon for being the founding member and frontman of Bon Iver. The majority of the album was recorded in Dessner's shed studio in the Hudson Valley.
"You Had Your Soul with You" is a song by American indie rock band The National. It appears as the first track on the band's eighth studio album I Am Easy to Find. "You Had Your Soul with You" was released in the United States as the album's first single on March 5, 2019.
I Am Easy to Find is a 2019 American short film directed by Mike Mills starring Alicia Vikander. The film was released on May 13, 2019 on the official YouTube page of the rock band the National.
Serpentine Prison is the debut solo studio album by Matt Berninger, lead singer and co-songwriter of The National, released on October 16, 2020. It was produced by Booker T. Jones and released on Book’s Records, a new imprint of Concord Records formed by Berninger and Jones.
Evermore is the ninth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was a surprise album released on December 11, 2020, via Republic Records, less than five months after her previous studio album Folklore. Evermore was a spontaneous product of Swift's extended collaboration with her Folklore collaborator Aaron Dessner, mainly recorded at his Long Pond Studio in the Hudson Valley.
"Coney Island" is a song by Taylor Swift featuring the National, taken from Swift's ninth studio album, Evermore (2020). Swift, Joe Alwyn, and the National's Aaron and Bryce Dessner wrote the song, with the latter two producing it. Matt Berninger contributed guest vocals. Republic Records sent "Coney Island" to US adult album alternative radio as a single on January 18, 2021.
First Two Pages of Frankenstein is the ninth studio album by the American indie rock band the National, released on April 28, 2023, by 4AD. The album was produced by The National at Long Pond studio in upstate New York and features guest appearances from Sufjan Stevens, Phoebe Bridgers, and Taylor Swift.