The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie have today announced plans for a landmark 20th anniversary co-headline North American tour.
While this concert revealed the inconsistent quality of his recent solo work, and also exposed just how central Death Cab For Cutie’s instrumentation is to the power of their songs, Ben Gibbard put on a thoroughly enjoyable and downright exquisite performance.
On November 8, singer-songwriter Laura Veirs will release her first album of children’s music called Tumble Bee: Laura Veirs Sings Folk Songs For Children. Inspired by the birth of their
It has been seven years since The Postal Service released Give Up and I still listen to it at least once a month. The obvious choice for a Cover Wars would have been Such Great Heights with the likes of Iron & Wine and Ben Folds likely to battle it out for the win, but when I sat down to write it, I figured I’d pick a different tune on the record so we could delve a bit more into obscurity. What follows is an interesting collection where the professionally recorded takes are not necessarily superior to the do-it-yourself YouTube sensations. Have a listen below to six different covers of the opening track to what will hopefully not be the only ever LP from The Postal Service.
The Contestants:
English singer Frank Turner leads us off this week with a solo acoustic version available on his release Source: First Three Years.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/frankdistrict.mp3]Turner performing a live version:
READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
The HT family has grown a bit over the course of the year, so we couldn’t fit everyone on the deck for last week’s BBQ. We had to have the rest of the gang over this week for part two of our discussion of the Best Albums Of The ’00s. So, we headed back to the store to pick up a variety of our favorite grillable food stuffs and a few cases of Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPAs for another rousing edition of At The Barbecue.
As we mentioned last week, the rules are quite simple. Any album released between January of 2000 and December of 2009 (though we’re not quite there yet) are fair game. So let’s not waste anymore time and jump right into our second installment…
Jeffrey Greenblatt: The Strokes – Is This It?
Over the last ten years I can easily say I’ve consumed more music than I ever have. So, with the scores of albums that went through my Discman (remember those kids?) and have been loaded onto two separate iPods this decade, there have been plenty that were easily forgettable, but only a true handful that have, and will, stand up to repeated listens for the years to come. Among that collection is the debut album from The Strokes – Is This It? – a collection of fuzzy, almost dangerous sounding Velvet Underground-inspired songs that came out at a time when rock needed to be saved.
READ ON for more of the HT Staff’s favorite albums of the ’00s…
