The Flying Club Cup

Zach Condon said about the name and inspiration for the album: "Back in the early 1900s...there used to be this hot air balloon festival in Paris—[the album's] titled after that and after this very bizarre 1910 photo I found [by Léon Gimpel]. It's one of the first color photos ever made, at the World's Fair, and it...shows all these ancient hot air balloons about to take off in the middle of Paris. I just thought it was the most surreal image I'd seen in a long time." He also said about the album sound: "I was listening to a lot of Jacques Brel and French chanson music—pop songs shrouded in big, glorious, over-the-top arrangements and all this drama—and that was in some sense unfamiliar territory to me. So I started buying new instruments and relying on things I wasn't necessarily comfortable with, like French horns and euphoniums, carrying these big, epic big brass parts that I used to do all on trumpets, and working with accordion and organ instead of all ukulele—very much throwing myself in the world of classical pop music, I guess you could say."

According to the program notes given out during Beirut's performance at The Society for Ethical Culture in New York on September 24, 2007, each song on the album is intended to evoke a different French city (although Guaymas, Sonora is a Mexican city).

The album's second track, Nantes, was sampled on the 2012 10 Day mixtape from American rapper Chance the Rapper.[13]

The cover photograph was taken in Brittany, France during the 1930s. It shows the Trestraou beach in the city of Perros-Guirec.

The whole album has been shot by La Blogothèque in Brooklyn. Each track filmed as a Take Away Show Archived 2009-02-16 at the Wayback Machine, available on the site of the album.

It was awarded a gold certification from the Independent Music Companies Association which indicated sales of at least 100,000 copies throughout Europe.[26] As of 2009, sales in the United States have exceeded 78,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.[27]

The following people contributed to The Flying Club Cup:[28]

Beirut

• Zach Condon - accordion, composer, conch shell, engineer, euphonium, farfisa organ, flugelhorn, french horn, glockenspiel, mandolin, mixing, percussion, piano, trumpet, ukulele, vocals, backup vocals, wurlitzer
• Jon Natchez - clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, mandolin, melodica, baritone saxophone
• Perrin Cloutier - accordion, upright bass, cello, viola, backup vocals
• Jason Poranski - mandolin, mandolin arrangement, backup vocals
• Nick Petree - guitar, percussion, backup vocals
• Kristin Ferebee - violin, backup vocals
• Heather Trost - viola, violin
• Kelly Pratt - euphonium
• Paul Collins - bouzouki

Additional personnel

• Owen Pallett - celeste, composer, harpsichord, organ, string arrangements, violin, vocals
• Griffin Rodriguez - engineer, mastering, mixing, backup vocals
• Alexandra Klasinski - design, layout design
• Kristianna Smith - design, layout design
• Kendrick Strauch - composer, piano
• Mark Lawson - engineer
• Ryan Condon - story