Blowin' Indie Wind Postal Service- 'Give Up' and Just Enjoy

Author: Erika Mercer

You might hate the guy who can sing a line as corny as, "I want so badly to believe / That there is truth and love is real," and get away with it.
Or the same guy who can put a sweet, soft, Belle & Sebastian-esque voice to a quick, upbeat, 80s electronic dance beat and make you want to dance and sing -- even though you might despise either 80s dance music or Belle & Sebastian.
Or the guy -- dare I say it? -- who makes you remember that pop music (and life, for that matter) can be oh, so fun.
But even if you're tempted to hate him, Ben Gibbard of "Postal Service" literally says, "Give Up" and proceeds to mesmerize you with his catchy melodies and sweet, boyish voice.
"Postal Service," a collaboration between "Deathcab For Cutie" frontman Ben Gibbard and "Dntel" mastermind Jimmy Tamborello, can be traced back to early 2001, when Tamborello asked Gibbard -- at that time the two were total strangers -- to provide the vocals on his song, "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan."
The song was featured on Dntel's 2001 release, "Life Is Full of Possibilities," and won the pair much acclaim for their unique combination of complex electronic music with a soft and simple indie voice.
The enjoyment and success both musicians gathered from their collaboration sewed the seeds for their first full-length album, "Give Up."
As early as Dec. 2001, Tamborello began sending Gibbard electronic music samples -- two songs every two months -- via mail (hence, "Postal Service"), which Gibbard edited and mixed, adding melodies, lyrics and often guitar, drums and keyboards (played on the album by Chris Walla).
Gibbard described the process: "I'd do demos and he'd send them back and he'd say, 'That sounds good,' or maybe he'd change this or that [...] It was such an impersonal way to work, it made it a lot easier to take criticism. Jimmy and I were really good about not voicing criticism unless it was something we felt strongly about."
The correspondence continued over the next year, resulting in 10 songs and a close friendship between Tamborello and Gibbard: "The whole time we were doing these songs, we didn't know each other at all. We started getting together to do vocals and hanging out more, and we became friends."
Their end product was released Feb. 18, 2003, on Sub Pop, marking the close of the two musician's year of hard work.
"Give Up" certainly makes the unique production seem hard to believe -- the lyrics and melodies interweave as effortlessly with the electronics as if the two had worked side by side on the songs.
A mixture of indie, pop and electronica, "Give Up" combines Tamborello's dense electronic arrangements -- what one critic called his "melodic knob-twiddling" -- with Gibbard's sweet, indie melodies, creating a sound that is both retro and modern at the same time.
Mingling 80s dance beats -- created through vintage synthesizers and drum machines -- with catchy pop melodies, "Postal Service," doesn't leave you any option but to tap your foot or hum along.
Even when the lyrics or melodies happen to be more downbeat, the relentless electronic beat pulses on, keeping the tone high and happy.
In addition, the Gibbard's lyrics are about as sappy and sugary-sweet as a big wad of cotton candy, a taste that many critics have attacked as adolescent, immature or overly sentimental.
In a sense, this criticism holds: the lyrics are undeniably corny, yet at the same time this corniness fits with the mood of the album -- dark, deep or depressing lyrics would create too huge a disparity between themselves and the upbeat nature of the album. While sometimes exceedingly syrupy, the lyrics find their place: when Gibbard sings, "I am thinking it's a sign / That the freckles in our eyes are mirror images / And when we kiss their perfectly aligned," we bop our head and sigh romantically instead of rolling our eyes.
Gibbard commented fittingly on the song-writing process: "It didn't feel right for all the songs to be break-up-type songs -- they just felt more like the kind of songs that you would want to dance to and you wouldn't want to have a lyric that's super heavy."
As a conscious result, the lyrics are light, sweet and happy. Just as the music commands you to dance, the lyrics will find you singing along to them.
For more info on "Postal Service," check out their website at: http://www.subpop.com/bands/postalservice/index.php.
Also, catch "Postal Service" being aired on WRMC the Friday after break from 8-10 p.m.