Death Cab for Cutie

One Liner: One of the finest indie rock bands of all time

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, alternative rock, indie pop

Home: Bellingham, Washington

Poster Position: Headliner!
Both Weekends.  Saturday.

Thoughts:  Ben Gibbard's band was once the most important indie rock bands I could think of, but now I realize that they have fallen off of my radar entirely.  I never have gotten to see them live, so I am hopeful that they'll put together a show that leans on the past and emphasizes their rockier side.

Gibbard initially started the band as a solo project, but then expanded it out into a real band in 1998 for their debut - Something about Airplanes.  But several years later, they hit their commercial and critical apex with the back-to-back releases of 2003's Transatlanticism and then 2005's Plans.  They were features on TV and in movies, and that second album went platinum.  Their truly awful band name came from a song title, by the BOnzo Dog Doo-Dah Band that was performed in the Beatles film Magical Mystery Tour.  Gibbard has expressed chagrin at the name, saying "The name was never supposed to be something that someone was going to reference 15 years on. So yeah, I would absolutely go back and give it a more obvious name."  Just drop the "for Cutie" part!  Easy!

I bought Transatlanticism when it came out, I remember someone playing it in the law review offices while I was working on some godawful technical editing project that made me want to curl up and die, but taking note of this tuneful, harmonic, wonderful sound.  It opens up with these hard and discordant guitar riffs, and then Gibbard's plaintive falsetto starts singing these wonderfully descriptive and interesting lyrics over the top of great indie rock tunes.  The top songs were "Sound of Settling," "Title and Registration" (with its fantastic opening line about the glove compartment being inaccurately named), and "A Lack of Color," but the title track has been the biggest streamer over time.  Just over 50 million streams.

So damn sad and poignant.  Just the opening chords, hearing them again just now for the first time in years, made me sigh, break out in goosebumps, and think about the build later in the song.  Almost 8 minutes long, but it feels like those eight minutes are all both necessary and earned.  Songs from this album ended up used in Wedding Crashers, Easy A, The O.C., and Six Feet Under.  Six Feet Under had a great soundtrack - the show got to be a little much for me over time, but I remember the music in that show being top tier.

After that album came out, I used now-unfortunate means to get and listen to some of the older music, and really liked the 2000 album We Have the Facts and Are Voting Yes.  In my defense, the band actually encouraged fans to download their songs from the Internet!  But next in the order of music was 2005's Plans, which really fired the band into the public consciousness.  "Soul Meets Body" became a constant radio tune, and "Crooked Teeth" also became a hit.  But their killer song to me will always be "I Will Follow You Into the Dark."  Just one of the most lovely songs I can imagine.  252.1 million streams.

Between that and "If We Were Vampires," I could just listen to songs about lovers dying all day long and feel sated.  "Love of mine.  Someday you will die.  But I'll be close behind.  I'll follow you into the dark... if heaven and hell decide, that they both are satisfied, illuminate the "no" on their vacancy signs. If there's no one beside you, when your soul embarks, then I'll follow you into the dark."  Many times when writing out lyrics on this blog, I have to go look them up to be sure, but I know those by heart.  And his voice is perfect for it, as is the tiny guitar bit.  Wonderful.  The whole album is great and absolutely worth a listen if this is your first introduction to the band.

Next came 2008's Narrow Stairs, which boasts one pretty big track that I still hear on the radio sometimes, and not much else.  Still overall sounds good, but didn't feel as vital to me as the last two discs.  The top track is "I Will Possess Your Heart."  33.4 million streams.

The piano and bassline on that one make it special.  Got a good groove to it.  It is too bad that he didn't just do a whole series of songs that were all titled "I Will" do something.  Like, he'll follow you into the dark, and then he'll possess your heart, and then he'll lock you in a cage, and then he'll feed you strawberries, and then he'll cut off your toes one by one, and then he'll comb your hair, and then he'll buy you a Maserati, and then he'll pick your nose, and then he'll fly far far away.  Maybe he takes requests?

I don't recall 2011's Codes and Keys at all.  Maybe by then I had gotten off of the Death Cab train.  No, actually, I recall the hit from that one.  But I think I thought it was from the 2008 album.  2015's Kintsugi still sounded great, I reviewed it as follows:  "More great sounding music from Ben Gibbard and his friends.  I loved Transatlanticism and Signs, and still think "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" is one of the greatest songs around.  This one follows the same kind of sound, indie rock with good groove.  Here is "Black Sun," 42.5 million streams.

I feel sad for that guy who keeps getting run over.  Poor guy.  But this album is good.  I don't hear an instant killer hit like IWFYITD, but it is solid."

And then I don't know what happened to me, but I absolutely hated the next disc.  2018's Thank You For Today.  "Sooooo boring.  Earlier this week, I tried just shuffling through all the music in my new music Q.  I was busy at work and it was nice to just try out new stuff without feeling a compulsion to write about it or really heavily listen.  Every time a song from this album came on, I looked at Spotify just to see who was crushing my soul.  I like me some old Death Cab, but this does zero for me.  "Gold Rush" is the hit so far, with about 6 million streams. [now up to 21 million]

Sounds like KGSR, now "Austin City Limits Radio" (voooooooomit), in 1992.  And not in a good way.  Each song is just super milquetoast and gentle."  Wow.  Who pissed in my Cheerios?  I was so mad!

Since then, no new albums, but I will definitely say that the two most recent EPs sound really good.  2021's The Georgia EP is a disc of covers of Georgia artists (Jason Isbell did something similar to thank Georgia for going blue at the 2020 elections) that includes two that I immediately recognize - REM and TLC, but then three I don't - Neutral Milk Hotel, Vic Chesnutt, and Cat Power.  It is solid, although someone other than Gibbard is singing on that cover of "Fall on Me."  Such a good tune.  Man, I love REM.  And even better is the one right before it, 2019's The Blue EP.  "To The Ground" sounds really good!  Just over 4 million streams.

Starts off all spacey and mystical, before the urgent little guitar riffage comes in there.  The tune could almost be an old REM song, now that I have them in my brain.  But this one scratches the itch that the last full album missed entirely for me.  "Kids in '99" gives off a good little drummer boy sound too.  This is better!

They apparently have a new album to be released on September 16, so I guess we will get some even newer tunes at the Fest!