Song: "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan"
Artist: Dentl (with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie)
Year: 2001
Album: Life is Full of Possibilities
In 2001, my interest in music underwent a great and wondrous revival that started with my first listen to Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane over the Sea, continued with my discovery of Modest Mouse and Godspeed! You Black Emperor and by the time the year was over, I was a full-fledged devotee to this thing called "indie rock" that I didn't really know existed before but was alive with incredible music being made by underground bands following the traditions of Superchunk and Pavement and Built to Spill and the Pixies and Guided by Voices, one decade after most of those bands had their start. And at the end of 2001, there was no band I fell for more than Death Cab for Cutie. The O.C. was still two years away from premiering and introducing the world to the indie rock underground through Seth Cohen's obsessions with bands like the weirdly named Death Cab for Cutie, but by then I was already a huge fan of their first three albums, including their 2001 release The Photo Album, which might not have been as perfect as We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes but was one of my favorites of 2001/02. Along the way, lead singer Ben Gibbard appeared on Jimmy Tamborello's 2nd album of electronic stylings under the Dntel moniker, singing the 9th track on Life is Full of Possibilities. The success of this song led to a full album collaboration between Gibbard and Tamborello where Tamborello would mail electronic beats to Gibbard, who would throw lyrics and sing on top of the tracks and eventually they had enough music for an album. They called themselves Postal Service in honor of the "old-school" way to exchange data (this was before true Internet file sharing I guess) and that album was called Give Up and became one of the most successful indie rock albums in history, selling over 1 million copies to date on Sub Pop records (the most since Nirvana's debut Bleach) and more by far than any individual efforts by Gibbard or Tamborello at the time. Death Cab went on to sell-out success as their albums after The Photo Album got less and less interesting and more and more popular among teenage girls, while Tamborello waited until 2007 for a follow-up Dntel release, an incredible album called Dumb Luck that didn't come close to charting. I lost interest in Death Cab somewhere around 2005's Plans and didn't even buy or listen to a single track from their 2011 release Codes and Keys, certain I wouldn't like it. I'm not entirely sure whether their sound changed or my interest in their sound faded -- while I still have fondness for the tracks on Something About Airplanes and We Have the Facts..., I don't listen to them much anymore and I can't really say I like The Photo Album anymore. But I still like the Postal Service, successful album that it was -- "The District Sleeps Tonight" and "Such Great Heights" are really great songs. And I still love "Evan and Chan". Too bad Jimmy and Ben have not gotten together for a collaboration since.
Oh, and there's also Owen Pallet's riff on the track regarding his then-bandmates in Arcade Fire called "This is the Dream of Win and Regine", which remains one of my favorite Owen Pallet tracks. Of course, Arcade Fire's success eventually enclipsed even the mainstream success of Death Cab for Cutie but somehow they're still great in my mind. Sometimes not selling out is a good thing for your music.
