death cab for cutie
Every Death Cab for Cutie Album, Ranked
There are few bigger indie success stories in the past 20 years than Death Cab for Cutie. The group, founded in Bellingham, Washington in the mid-’90s, began like many underground acts — with witty and intricate songs recorded on a budget. But they quickly displayed a penchant for radio-friendly rock anthems that tapped into a particular kind of youthful vulnerability. They’re not “emo” exactly, but there’s a good reason why the term stuck — it’s impossible not to feel something when listening to their music. That quality helped them become a household name (as referenced on shows like The O.C.) and eventually a popular staple on terrestrial radio. On Sept. 16, Death Cab for Cutie release Asphalt Meadows: their 10th album, second as a quintet, and first with producer John Congleton. T...
Death Cab for Cutie’s ‘Exciting’ Writing Experiment Fueled Their Best Album in Years
When Ben Gibbard was putting the finishing touches on Death Cab For Cutie‘s 10th album, Asphalt Meadows, he had a feeling that it would appease longtime fans. And he was correct. “As we started playing it for friends and people close to us, we started to get that reaction that was not just people being supportive, but people being genuinely effusive,” recalls Gibbard, speaking on Zoom from his Seattle home, with a peppy demeanor early in the morning. In Asphalt Meadows, there are elements of the band’s early work, sonically nodding to Narrow Stairs, The Photo Album, and even Transatlanticism, while also feeling fresh — thrashier and livelier than ever before — with some of Gibbard’s sturdiest songwriting since their hit albums. A year after 2018’s Thank You for Today, Gibbard started writi...
Noah Cyrus Gets an Assist From Benjamin Gibbard on ‘Every Beginning Ends’
Noah Cyrus gets a hand from Death Cab For Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard on her latest single, “Every Beginning Ends,” which is accompanied by a video directed by Lance Bangs (Nirvana, Pavement). “Every Beginning Ends” comes from Cyrus’ upcoming debut studio album, The Hardest Part, due out on Sept. 16. The new song was recorded at Gibbard’s Seattle studio. “I’ve always been such a huge fan, so it was pretty daunting to get in the room with him, but once we got to work it all came very naturally,” Cyrus says of the experience. “We talked about past relationships, failed relationships, our parents’ relationships and relationships that have lasted forever. He told me his dad has a saying: ‘you have to wake up and choose to love someone every day,’ and it sparked this conversational song abo...
Death Cab for Cutie Unveil Spoken Word ‘Foxglove Through the Clearcut’
Death Cab for Cutie is out with their new single, “Foxglove Through the Clearcut,” from the forthcoming album, Asphalt Meadows. The track is accompanied by a lyric video from frequent Death Cab collaborator Juliet Bryant, which heightens the track’s moving spoken-word components and meditative instrumentation. [embedded content][embedded content] “‘Foxglove’ is by far the most personal song on the record,” lead vocalist and guitarist Ben Gibbard said in a statement. “While I was writing it, I thought I was merely the narrator. But the longer I sat with it, I realized I was both the protagonist AND the narrator.” The band previously released “Here to Forever” and “Roman Candles” from the upcoming album. The eight-time Grammy-nominated group will perform next at Indianapolis’ All In Festival...
Death Cab for Cutie Sets Off ‘Roman Candles’ Ahead of New Album
Death Cab for Cutie has unveiled “Roman Candles,” the first taste of music from its next studio album, Asphalt Meadows, due out on September 16 from Atlantic. The track is a bit discordant (and brief) by Death Cab standards, as it rides a variety of loud and distorted noises underneath frontman Ben Gibbard’s signature vocals in a succinct 2:10 running time. Gibbard says the song “is about the crippling, existential dread that goes hand in hand with living in a nervous city on a dying planet, and that the only way to be in the moment is to let it all go. The lyrics were cobbled from a couple of different songs dealing with my general sense of anxiety — the feeling that the fabric that weaves a functioning society together was crumbling during the pandemic.” [embedded content][embedded ...
The 40 Best Emo Love Songs
While emo music might be most associated with sadness and heartbreak, those lovelorn artists couldn’t have written such songs without experiencing some serious romantic highs. Since it’s Valentine’s Day, we wanted to focus on the good parts of love more than the bad — although there’s still some unhappiness and resentment mixed in. (I mean, it is still emo after all.) SPIN’s writers spanned decades, waves and numerous albums looking for the top emo love songs, and now we’ve gathered them all here to save you the work. And yes, we know “emo” is just as broad a term as “love song” — you may also describe some of these acts as pop-punk or post-hardcore or even heart-on-sleeve indie-rock. But all of these bangers branch off the same family tree. From trailblazers like The Get Up Kids...
Death Cab for Cutie Detail ‘Powerful’ File-Swap Sessions That Kick-Started Next LP
Early in the pandemic, Death Cab for Cutie‘s Ben Gibbard seemed to be ahead of the curve. In March, he launched a solo performance stream, Live From Home, helping blueprint a detour for musicians swept off the road. But with the camera switched off, he was just as confused as anyone else — and it took him a while to find his artistic footing. “The first couple months, especially when I was doing the livestreams — well, we all were there. There was this feeling of, ‘This is gonna last a month, and then we’ll get back to real life,’” Gibbard tells SPIN. “Then there was the panic of every day: ‘You can’t touch this; don’t do that; you’ll die if you do that.’ With the amount of anxiety, and also the thought that this would be a short-term thing, I did hardly any writing.” There were a lo...
Death Cab for Cutie: How Dysfunction and Desire Fueled The Photo Album
“It was kind of a treacherous gamble to make,” says Death Cab for Cutie bassist Nick Harmer, reflecting on their third LP, 2001’s The Photo Album. “Making it, touring it — all of that felt really charged.” That’s putting it mildly. After the mild indie-rock breakthrough of 2000’s We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, Death Cab suddenly had to meet an array of expectations: critics, their label, a rapidly expanding fan base, even themselves. “I was very stressed going into that record,” adds singer-songwriter Ben Gibbard. “I didn’t feel like I had enough songs. We were really burned out on each other from touring a lot. And we’d never found ourselves in a situation where we were pressured to get a record done. We Have the Facts didn’t sell super great at the time, but people definite...
Death Cab for Cutie Announce 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of The Photo Album
Death Cab for Cutie announced a special deluxe edition of The Photo Album, in lieu of its 20th anniversary this year, out digitally October 29. The Photo Album was originally released on October 9, 2001. The 35-track newly remastered record includes studio outtakes, previously unreleased tracks, rarities, and UK-exclusive b-sides, even covers of Björk‘s “All Is Full of Love” and the Stone Roses‘ “I Wanna Be Adored.” A limited edition 2xLP, also newly remastered for vinyl, is available for pre-order now, and drops in the spring of 2022. With the announcement, the band shared a previously unreleased “Coney Island (Band Demo).” “It’s very indicative of the process we were employing at that point, which was to deconstruct something and build it completely back up,” the group’s lead v...
Tycho and Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard Drop Indietronica Jam, “Only Love”
Tycho and Death Cab for Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard have joined forces on a new single called “Only Love,” a tender and uplifting indietronica jam. The two prove to be a match made in heaven, with Tycho’s radiant production serving as the perfect vessel for Gibbard’s distinctive voice. Bubbly guitar riffs and synthwave influences permeate the track, which has a psychedelic feel and cultivates the perfect ambiance for one of Tycho’s famous sunrise performances. Tycho shared that “Only Love” originally went in a different sonic direction until he teamed up with Gibbard. “I had been a fan of Ben’s work for a long time when, in 2016, I had the chance to do a remix for Death Cab for Cutie’s track ‘The Ghost...
Death Cab for Cutie to Release Live At The Showbox Benefit Album
Death Cab for Cutie will release a new live album, Live At The Showbox, for just 24 hours as a Bandcamp Friday exclusive on May 7. A portion of the proceeds will benefit NIVA, the National Independent Venue Association. The 17-song set will have an official release later this year. Live At The Showbox was recorded just before the COVID lockdown over a sold-out three-night-stand from Feb. 24-26, 2020, at The Showbox in Seattle. Songs on the live set include “Company Calls,” “I Will Follow You Into The Dark,” “I Will Possess Your Heart,” “Tiny Vessels,” “We Looked Like Giants,” “Black Sun” and more. Death Cab shared a statement about the Showbox set: Like so many other artists, we expected to play a lot of shows in 2020. To gear up for the year ahead, we decid...
Death Cab for Cutie Frontman Ben Gibbard Wants to Work With ODESZA
Have you ever wondered what a collaboration between ODESZA and Death Cab for Cutie would sound like? Neither have we. Iconic Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard recently appeared on Audacy’s New Arrivals with Bryce Segall to chat about his livestreaming ventures during the global lockdown period and his recent philanthropical endeavors, among other topics. It was his comments on a potential collaboration with ODESZA, however, that sent ripples through the electronic music community. ODESZA and Gibbard have crossed paths in the Seattle area many times, including at a co-headlining concert at Bellingham’s Civic Stadium in May 2019. It turns out that Gibbard, who called the duo “great, wonderful dudes” and “really talented,” has been kicking the tires on a po...
- 1
- 2
