The band's name is taken from a nickname for the 1970s Cincinnati Reds baseball team, which won the World Series back to back in 1975 and 1976. Dessner was born in Cincinnati in 1976 and raised there. Dessner and Vernon had always run in the same musical circles and had worked together on occasion, even collaborating on a song titled "Big Red Machine" for Dark Was the Night, a 2009 album for the Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series, before officially forming the group in 2016.
Their first album, a self-titled one, was released in August 2018. Their second album was released in August 2021. It has several features from past collaborators, including Taylor Swift, Anaïs Mitchell, Fleet Foxes, Lisa Hannigan, Ben Howard, and Sharon Van Etten. Both albums thus far have been slow and somber affairs, and feature common themes such as love, relationships, melancholia, and transcience.
Discography
- Big Red Machine (2018)
- How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last? (2021)
Tropes:
- Album Title Drop: The titular question of the second album, How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?, is posed in the very first lines of the very first song, "Latter Days".How long? Is what you asked
How long do you think it's gonna last? - Celebrity Elegy: The song "Hutch" is a tribute to Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison, who killed himself in 2018. The singer mourns him and the things he could have said to him before his passing.
- Creator Provincialism: A lot of their music references their Midwestern upbringing (Dessner and Vernon are natives of Ohio and Wisconsin, respectively), such as the song "The Ghosts of Cincinnati" and the lines in "New Auburn" referencing highways that run through Wisconsin.
- Destructive Romance: The central love of "Renegade", where the singer's lover has mental health issues that they take out on the relationship, and in turn, the singer.Are you really gonna talk about timing in times like these?
And let all your damage damage me
And carry your baggage up my street
And make me your future history, it’s time... - Location Song: "The Ghosts of Cincinnati" reminisces about Over-the-Rhine, a neighborhood in the city.
- Looped Lyrics: Common across their first album.
- "Gratitude" has twofer repeats of "Well, there ain't no other other" and "Well, I better not fuck this up" in each verse.
- "People Lullaby" loops "Has me all borderline - re-erased" in the middle of the song.
- "Melt" repeats "Well, you are who you are" several times at the beginning and end of the song, with a couple of repetitions in the middle for good measure.
- Ode to Family: "Brycie" is an ode to Aaron Dessner's twin brother and The National bandmate Bryce Dessner.
- One-Woman Song: "Magnolia", about a woman in a bad relationship whom the singer is concerned for.
- Self-Titled Album: Their first album, Big Red Machine, shares a name with the band.
