Best Record of 2001: Day 40
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a look at The Photo Album by Death Cab for Cutie.
A lifetime ago, I saw Death Cab play one of those festivals every city seems to have during the summer. This was in Portland, and someone had the brilliant idea to run this festival at the exact same time as one of the 9th biggest and most established events. PDX’ers are nothing if not ambitious. It was, to put it diplomatically, an unmitigated disaster. Attendance could be measured by the dozen…maybe. I was there for one simple reason: I was getting paid. It was one of the most surreal weekends in a life filled with more than a few.
But! But they had a relatively decent lineup of music acts. During the after was the usual litany of local bands you’ve never heard of. The guys that got together to lay after work at whoever happened to give a garage. the ones who had a short-lived engagement at the Elks on the east side…and a B-list nostalgia act in the hopes of drawing in the Boomers like a tractor beam (The Tokens, in this case). Somehow, through all of this, DCFC managed to snag a prime evening spot… only to have it pour. When I tell you nothing went right at this event, I’m not exaggerating.
I don’t remember much about their set other than the absolutely fantastic cover they did of Julian Cope’s World Shut Your Mouth. Maybe it was just the right track at the right time, but man, did it hit!
There’s a clunky analogy in there somewhere, but DCFC records have always been a band that struck me as having 1-2 great tracks surrounded by a bunch of well-done and well-produced stuff you can’t remember 45 minutes later. In fact, ahead of going into this record, I can think of 5: the aforementioned cover, “Ghosts of Beverly Drive” (imo, their best), “You Are a Tourist,” “The Sound of Settling,” and the title track from Transatlanticism. All of these would come after 2001’s The Photo Album.
I played this while catching up on stuff around the house. On a practical level, this was the only time I really had to give it a listen, but I was also half hoping something would stop me in my tracks and maybe get me to sit down for a second to listen more closely. Dear reader, that didn’t happen. Again, this is a well-done, pleasant album. “I Was A Kaliedoscope” has a chord change/bridge thing that they very much used again when composing “Ghosts of Beverly Drive” (this is a good thing). The drum beat on “We Laugh Indoors” sounds like it was nicked from Phil Collins’ “Don’t Lose My Number” (a wild thing).
Mostly, this reminded me that a band I once thought of as crappy upstarts- the kind that would play a dead festival in the rain had become the sort of thing trustafarians at Reed College played when they wanted to come across as 10% edgier. Even a single power chord would have done wonders here. It’s very much ideal for the Lake Oswego set (not the best thing). I’m hammering this out after finishing my chores, and outside of “Kaleidoscope,” I can’t remember a whole lot else. Add that one to your playlists, and skip forward to Transatlanticism. There’s better stuff ahead.
Bottom Line: This is up against Sloan’s “Pretty Together.” By rights, this one should get my votes on the title’s wordplay alone. And so it shall be. Bracket pick was for DCFC, and today I’ll once again be voting against my own interests and going with our friends from north of the border.
Any thoughts on either this or any DCFC records? Agree/disagree with my take? Sound off in the comments!
Kevin Sent 