Does success stifle creativity? Pondering on The National

Today I spent most of the day discussing The National with a fellow fan (a much bigger fan than me actually). While we still both love the band, we can't help feeling that their latest songs are decidedly mediocre compared to their earlier work. When we have voiced these comments, we've been told that we're one of those people who only like a band when no one else has heard of them because it makes us feel special, which couldn't be further from the truth. We're both very happy that the band we love so much are now appreciated by so many people, we just object to the turn towards the mundane the band have taken. That their songwriting has gone from edgy to saccharine is an objective fact. Compare Karen from 2005 album Alligator (the album that first put the band on the radar)...

... with I Need My Girl, one of their latest works in progress.

Although both are ostensibly 'love' songs, Karen is so much more gritty. What changed? I can only assume that, now having found fame, The National are keen to cultivate it and lyrics like 'It's a common fetish for a doting man, a ballerina on a coffee table cock in hand' aren't exactly radio friendly. But more than that, what is so attractive about The National's earlier lyrics is the roughness born of a struggle with mundane reality. It's what made them relateable. Perhaps on of their most beautiful, moving songs is Baby We'll Be Fine, also from Alligator:

The subject matter is very similar to I Need My Girl, both are about trying to keep a relationship going despite obstacles, only Baby's protagonist is a white-collar worker agonising about winning his bosses approval, while INMG is a response to years of continual touring. Similar emotions are there, but it's much less relateable.

Moreover, the fuel of their earliest work was a desperate desire to escape from the dreariness of their offices, an indignation against the cult of the 1%. Nowhere is this more evident than in The Theory of the Crows from their self-titled 2001 début (below). Ironically, having now achieved this goal, they have lost the passion of those early days. It made us fans think, do artists need to be struggling to create truly great work?