Life hands us many milestones as we wend our way from cradle to grave. From first teeth to first kisses to first loves and losses, we mark off our crucial firsts as transformative events; we're no longer babies, or children, or teenagers, or dependent on others to get by. One of those milestones, for those of us who so often set our lives to music, is the first time we get to mutter, "That came out 10 years ago? God, I am so old."
Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism played in the background of countless decade-old milestones around the world, especially the ones involving first kisses and so forth, and it's no wonder. The album, and its epic title song in particular, played on an endless loop across popular culture — on movie soundtracks and in dramatic moments from such TV shows as Six Feet Under. The way singer Ben Gibbard channeled youthful confusion, vulnerability and sweetness mirrored universal fumbling feelings of growing up and facing down the complexities of love, heartbreak, long-distance yearning and budding nostalgia. From the first line of its first song ("So this is the new year / and I don't feel any different"), Transatlanticisms wims in uncertainty, as if its narrator isn't even quite sure how feelings work yet.
For all its ubiquity and imitators, Transatlanticism holds up as an exquisitely produced, largely flawless record in which every song is bound to serve as someone's favorite. As such, though new would-be fans are born every day, most of its target audience already owns the thing, right? Enter this reissue, out Oct. 29, in which the original album is packaged alongside an identically sequenced but otherwise revelatory set of demo versions.
No comments :
Post a Comment