Man, I’m starting to feel really old. It wasn’t that long ago that we celebrated the 10 year anniversary of Interpol’s “Turn on the Bright Lights,” and now here we are again celebrating the 10 year anniversary of another fantastic album that shaped the lives of many 20-somethings. The Postal Service was/is the creation of Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel), and it became larger than they perhaps imagined possible–some would argue larger than the projects which made them famous before The Postal Service.
Regardless of where you stand on that subject, “Give Up” was a massive album for it’s time, and as I listen to it again today it remains solid and relevant to the times. The appeal of the album was how well it blended portions of the electronica genre with good old fashioned solid lyrics.
The album was wildly popular upon release, but it wasn’t until October 2012 that “Give Up” went platinum, selling over a million copies. While sales aren’t the real determiner of quality, it goes to show how well this album held up over the years–people still bought it years after its release date.
The Postal Service, while certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, is an important landmark not just for the “indie” genre, but also for an entire generation. Pretty much everyone I know has some sort of memory attached to this album, largely because many 20-somethings out there were in high school when this came out (which comes with its own set of challenges and trials). The songs remain as beautiful now as they were when I was 16, and it’s beyond wild to look back over the last decade and put this album in perspective.
