The Fall Of Jann Wenner and A Surprise Album From The National

Indiecast

It's been a week since former Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner gave a disastrous interview to the New York Times to promote his upcoming book of classic rocker interviews, The Masters. Thankfully, it lingered just long enough in the news for Steven and Ian to talk about it on the pod. The guys reflect on Wenner's legacy, why he chose to say out loud what many assumed were his feelings about women and black musicians, and what this means for the discourse overall. Also, they talk about the surprise re-emergence of Spin's Bob Guccione Jr. aka the guy Axl Rose threatened to beat up in "Get In The Ring." (:25)

From there they talk about Laugh Track, the surprise new album by The National that dropped earlier this week (23:33). It's their second LP of 2023 after First Two Pages Of Frankenstein, and it sounds a lot like that record. Steven and Ian are somewhat lukewarm on both records, though Steven believes that a very good single National album could have been made from their best material. What's going on with this band, and have they lost the ability to self-edit?

In the mailbag, a listener takes the guys to task for talking about sports too much (33:43), and another letter writer asks an important CD-related question: jewel case or digipak? (41:52)

In Recommendation Corner (49:51), Ian talks about the Grimes-like singer-songwriter Yeule while Steven recommends the Summerteeth-like rock band Slaughter Beach, Dog.

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