When I first heard The Postal Service’s album, Give Up it rocked my world, in a snyth-poppy, not-that-rockin’ kind of way. It was totally awesome and amazing…FIVE YEARS AGO.
That’s right - today marks the five year anniversary of Sub Pop’s official release of Give Up.
Since then samples of the pretty little bleeps and blips have been (over)used in commercials selling cars, hospitals, candy, mp3 players, crappy MTV reality shows, and most recently UPS. Do the ad-men think that this is still the ticket to the hearts and wallets of the indie-yuppie demographic? Are there really people out there who aren’t as completely over it as I am? Apparently so. A quick search of my Facebook network shows that 12 of my “friends” and over 500 other people list The Postal Service as one of their favorite bands….
I am of the opinion that this is not even a real band; it’s a project. And it’s played out. I’m sure most of those people have checked out other Death Cab for Cutie music - it’s practically mom-rock these days. But how many of them listen to Dntel? James Figurine?
Five years later and this shit will not stop. It’s a phenomenon. Good for Sub Pop, and good for Ben and Jimmy. Not good for me because I have actually become sick of a record I really, really liked. It’s okay though, even if it hadn’t been embraced by the masses, I’d probably no longer be listening to this anymore. File it away as a classic and give it up.
2 Comments »
As much as I agree with your point about overplaying different types of music, you can’t help but realize that this album has music on it that seems almost timeless. No matter how many times I hear it, it sounds good. I personally think it helps that damn UPS commercial in many ways. While I feel that many other songs and albums out there need to go on the “in the past” section of record collections, Give Up is not one of them. Try Hotel California by The Eagles. That song needs to dry in an oven for a few years.
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Comment by erik — February 18, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
you left out the best of the tamborello related projects: figurine!
who, by the way, blow the postal service out of the water.. if only because there is no gibbard involvement. ick @ him.