#128 The Best Album of 2000, Round 2, Match #66: Death Cab for Cutie vs. Quasimoto
Hey folks,
Today’s Best Album of 2000 match is:
#33 Death Cab for Cutie, WE HAVE THE FACTS AND WE’RE VOTING YES
Listen on Spotify or YouTube
vs.
#97 Quasimoto, THE UNSEEN
Listen on Spotify or YouTube
To vote, follow this link to the Google Form. You will need a Google login to vote. If you can’t or won’t have one, let me know ASAP (either through this newsletter, my email (kentmbeeson@hey.com) or on the Best Album Brackets Bluesky account) and I’ll see what I can do.
Here’s an encore of @robbiebuffalo.bsky.social’s Designated Cheerleader for WE HAVE THE FACTS AND WE’RE VOTING YES. Take it away (again), Robbie!
Some artists debut with a fully formed sound. Death Cab for Cutie and their primary songwriter Ben Gibbard are not one of those bands. Many people probably first heard Gibbard due to his work in the Postal Service, who despite only releasing one album in 2003, can still periodically tour arenas based on the popularity of that album. Their most popular song "Such Great Heights" has nearly 177 million plays on Spotify. Others likely first heard of Death Cab for Cutie when they were played, and later appeared on "The O.C", or when their breakthrough 4th album TRANSATLANTICISM was released in the Fall of 2003. Others might not have heard them until their major-label debut album PLANS, released in the fall of 2005. If streaming is an indicator, this is still their most popular album, containing their most popular songs "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" and "Soul Meet Body." The band continues to release albums, tour, and maintain a large audience.
If the above is how you heard the band and you didn't go back until now to hear their earlier work, WE HAVE THE FACTS AND WE'RE VOTING YES is probably a strange listen. The spare, lo-fi production shouldn't be surprising, but the hushed, intimate tone of the album likely is. The upbeat songs such as "For What Reason" and "Company Calls" bear more resemblance to bands like Built to Spill then the poppier anthems that would become their calling card later. There are also quiet ballads ilke "405" and "Company Calls Epilogue" that might feel similar enough to songs like "I Will Follow You Into the Dark", though perhaps less immediate. But you almost certainly wouldn't expect to hear the genuine slowcore songs, with a clear debt to bands like Low or Codeine. There certainly isn't anything later in the DCFC catalog that calls back to songs like "The Employment Pages" or "No Joy in Mudville."
But the biggest shift for me is Gibbard's lyrics. He's certainly made a name for himself writing heartfelt, direct, and sweeping lyrics. The title track of TRANSATLANTICISM intones "I need you so much closer" over and over, for example (I don't have it in me to excerpt the lyrics from "I Will Follow You Into the Dark"). Here, he's much more cryptic and oblique. His later work is certainly a far cry from lines like "Synapse to synapse, the possibilities thin" and "I took the 405 and drilled a stake down into your center."
When I first bought this album in the fall of 2000, I had no idea what the future held for this band (of course, the band didn't either!). But I instantly fell in love with these intimate, personal songs that contained beautiful little gems of connection, longing, and heartbreak. I love Gibbard's lyrics on this album and am sad he moved away from expressing himself in this way. There are dozens that I go back too regularly, from the anger of "For What Reason" (when your apologies fail to ring true/so slick with that sarcastic slew/of phrases like I thought you knew/while keeping me in such hot pursuit) to the sighing resignation of "405" (you keep twisting the truth/that keeps me thrown askew). But the centerpiece of the album is the 1-2 punch of "Company Calls" into "Company Calls Epilogue." The former chimes with hope and optimism (I'll take the best of your bad moods/and dress them up to make a better you) before curdling into sadness and regret by the end of the song into the Epilogue. There aren't many lines as vivid and memorable to me as "Your wedding figurines I'd melt so I could drink them in." The chorus of the Epilogue still destroys me (crashing through the parlor doors what was your first reaction?/screaming drunk disorderly I'll tell you mine/you were the one, but I can't spit it out when/the date's been set, the white routine/to be ingested inaccurately).
I'm happy for Death Cab for Cutie's success, but for me, they never made a better album then WE HAVE THE FACTS AND WE'RE VOTING YES. "Scientist Studies" concludes the album, starting in mid-temp before building to what the band likely regarded at the time as an anthemic, cathartic conclusion. It still feels that way to me.
As always, click here to see the current results for the entire tournament, and click here to see the current results for the prediction bracket contest.
Yesterday, #1 OutKast, STANKONIA defeated #64 Mary Timony, MOUNTAINS, 66-35-1.
Thanks for reading, thanks for voting!
Kent