Death Cab for Cutie Albums + poll

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When I alluded to having this albums poll all figured out I had Animal Collective as the artist to close out this series. Just found out that we have already done them. I was going to pivot to PJ Harvey but there were two things with that. First was I really didn't want any solo artist this round but Purple Mountains already broke that rule so I could go ahead. Doing a fast search reveals that we have already done her as well. So now what, I don't want to cancel and can come up with something!?! I settled on Death Cab for Cutie and I know they aren't a popular band on this board but I did ask this question here and there were some who said they would vote in a DCFC albums poll. The other two artist I have in mind are more popular on ILM but going through with my promise from way back. Hope there is enough interest here and leaving this open for a bit so you can probably listen to one album per day and still make up your mind.

Can't believe I messed up the image again

don't let any cool guys fool you, the first four albums (Airplaines > Transatlanticism) is an all-time run

genuinely difficult choice.

i have to think of facts as their most representative. transatlanticism holds even more sentimental value because that was the tour i saw them. last thing i know is kintsugi, and it was diminishing returns by then. will revisit the old ones and listen to the newer ones before voting.

also i know this isn't a songs poll, but i just have to shoutout army corps of architects. it's the last track on you can play these songs with chords. it's my favorite thing they did, and that it wasn't included on any of their proper albums is completely disappointing. more accessible now in the era i guess.

Agreed, Army Corps is great and 99% of indie rock bands would kill to have Hindsight as a lead single on their album.

facts by a billion light years

voted for The Photo Album, very underrated record imo

another vote for the photo album here, have never quite understood why it's viewed as a cut below facts or transatlanticism

Voting Yes, though Codes & Keys is tempting as i'm probably the only person who thinks it's one of their best

someone made a mixtape years back of songs other artists ripped off and "company calls epilogue" was one and i've been trying to find it out after all these years.

coinflip facts or trans

I never really listened and actively hated on this band at the time but I started questioning all that when I realized Gibbard wrote the Monkees “Me and Magdalena”

Gibbard's music generally doesn't work for me, but there is certainly good stuff in the catalog. I was really pleasantly surprised by his solo album on Barsuk over a decade ago. He's also a great interview -- I'd rather hear him talk about music he loves than listen to his.

hm maybe i'll relisten to the catalog for this poll. i find transatlanticism on every revisit to be tremendously unendurably saccharine, and this extends to plans, but i looove narrow stairs and have always been sorta curious about codes & keys without having listened

facts is just a beautifully constructed album. every song is great

What great timing for a Dead Cab for City poll

sorry I meant Dead Crab for City

ivy i get what you mean. codes+keys does have some great stuff ("doors unlocked and open" still gets me), but a lot of it calls back to the more syrupy early 2000s vibe.

bloody otm―
"i'm building a fire" is one of his best ballads. i also love "cowpoke" and the song with aimee mann.

tangent if you like his music, but don't like gibbard's voice:
he played with american analog set a lot and was basically an unofficial member for a couple albums. the music on know by heart, promise of love,and set free is definitely riyl facts and the photo album. also search the post parlo 'home' split with ben+andrew kenny covering each other’s songs.

facts is just a beautifully constructed album. every song is great

― ivy., Wednesday, August 13, 2025 11:26 AM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

maps otherwise uncharted space between slowcore and built to spill, also. sometimes my favorite indie rock album like ever

those all felt (physically) close to me / each other at the time, I was sorta from that uncharted space (Montana). "Title Track," "Else," "Dinosaur Act" would all have to be on my MT adolescence mixtape

Codes & Keys is indeed syrupy but it all totally works on me, and it just sounds amazing, like Talkie Walkie or Golden Hour level amazing

I need to revisit his solo album, I did really love "Cowpoke" at the time

"I was sorta from that uncharted space (Montana)"

lmao, yes! montana!

dang, i had forgotten just how rejuvenated they sounded on narrow stairs! upon revisiting their initial run with chris walla, it's the only one that gives facts a real challenge. "i will possess your heart" was so undeserved by the edited down version. whoever's idea it was to make that the lead single is a true comedian.

airplanes/chords/quarterback 3.5
facts/forbidden love 5
photo/stability 4
transatlanticism 4
plans 3
stairs/open door 4.5
codes 3

will get to the others soon before voting, but will most likely go for facts or stairs.

also i posted earlier before proper revisiting. after doing so, codes+keys is gloriously overproduced. it's plans, but with way better taste. looking at reviews from the time, all of them mentioned that he had married zooey deschanel, which i had completely forgotten. was it relevant to the music? idk, but the album *is* pretty happy in hindsight.

thanks for this poll, bee. great reminder of a great band.

oh yeah, almost forgot: "you are a tourist" is one of their best singles.

i like them/him a good bit despite having largely tuned out after transatlanticism (for no particular reason -- i liked that album)

he seems like the zach graff of indie rock -- had legit good stuff but it now feels strangely awkward to admit to it. and having the worst possible band name doesn't help

(c'mon, scrubs was p. funny)

I'm glad I did this poll and why I throw curveballs sometimes. I knew they had enough, just wasn't sure. I had a meeting and rushed opening it, sorry for the mistakes.

The Postal Service was going to be an option but I was so worried about adding All-Time Quarterback! That I missed it after all. Now I'm happy that it isn't a option, more organic. I knew about the solo stuff but didn't think it would get any votes. My mistake for not including it.

There is a reason why I included those EPs. If I remember correctly, I could vote for any one of them not including John Byrd.

"Do you want to spend some time love?"

Glad others are mentioning Narrow Stairs as it's the one I'm most excited about revisiting again.

sidebar to all of this-
bee i know you're a baseball fan. just wondering if you've ever heard ben's tribute to ichiro suzuki? pretty fun ephemera; it's getting reissued to commemorate his hof induction.

worth mentioning that Ben is an ultra-marathon runner, too. he ran a 100-mile race in June!

https://www.stereogum.com/2313609/ben-gibbard-completes-prestigious-100-mile-ultramarathon/news/

Thanks for the link and altering me to that. Ichiro was an amazing player, well deserved to be in the Hall of Fame.

Have heard We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, The Forbidden Love EP and The Stability EP. "Stability" the song is like 12 minutes long, didn’t remember that. I'm a bit behind if I want to hear all of this before it closes. The Photo Album will be done tonight.

getting to the post-walla era today, i'll maybe have thoughts later. mostly wanted to post this live in studio session from 2004 as a reminder of how captivated i once was:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBf8sEvMfLk

"studio x sessions" (2004)

they only play one song from then-current transatlanticism and it's really fascinating to hear them right on the cusp of the peak of their popularity. there's the only other official recording of "army corps of architects" on it too. i think it was an itunes store exclusive. pretty foundational footnote to my fandom of the band, tbh.

chris walla appreciation post!

even more ephemera that's relevant to posters in this thread:
https://chriswalla.bandcamp.com/album/2002-ep

imposter syndrome is a rat gnawing at your wires and when they short circuit your judgment, you do things like, for example, sit on pretty respectable and finished work for, say, twenty or so years. anyway here's an ep i made between the photo album and transatlanticism. i am finally proud of it and i hope you enjoy it

i liked his album a lot, but not right away. i think he's a minor icon and seeing him live was like watching a gymnast or a breakdancer and one of the highlights of my life.

last post for now for and for lovers of photo album and transatlanticism era: the tour documentary/concert film drive well, sleep carefully:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE7b6_DbFBw

shoutout to nick harmer getting all starstruck and swoony when he sees the beastie boys backstage♡

i think if the photo album incorporated "stability" somehow it would be my favorite death cab album. they have sort of a math rock thing going on for most of that record, which unfortunately didn't really carry over to transatlanticism

oh also the drums on the photo album are weirdly incredible

Transatlanticism is the only one I ever really cared for

Been thinking about this a lot, but I'm going to stick with my gut and vote for We Have the Facts, the first Death Cab album I heard (fun fact: also the first album I ever ordered via the internet! was spoiled for record stores in college prior to that, so hadn't needed to before).

i may have told this story on ilm before, but i did college radio from 1996ish to 2001ish, and at some point pulled Something About Airplanes out of the heavy rotation box because the sticker on the spine referenced Built To Spill. fell so hard for SAA that when Facts showed up at the station a year or two later, i was so hotly anticipating it, i put the thing on and let it play all the way through, just so i could hear it. it was like 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday, so the listening audience was small/drunk anyway.

Kind of feel like that would have been an amazing way to stumble on that album, tbh.

transatlanticism: ok, there are several great songs on this album (shouts out in particular to "expo '86"), but it feels somewhat overproduced... too grand and dramatic or something. other people really respond to that and i get it, but i really prefer the more modest dynamics of pre-trans death cab. i hate "tiny vessels"

plans: it's nice, it's got good stuff on it, it especially ends really well, even though "stability">>>>>>"stable song". "your heart is an empty room" is so gorgeous that it's no wonder teenage me couldn't stop swooning to it. i think i prefer the production here to transatlanticism. but... idk, the effect is a little flat? the album is just nice? and it's hard to get through "i will follow you into the dark" without laughing, and i'm a very sentimental and earnest and romantic girl

narrow stairs: total recovery. in a different universe this is my favorite death cab album. and "long division" is absolutely my favorite death cab song, their last one that reminds me of the photo album. a really contemporary album in the sense that everything ben gibbard is singing about here is like incredibly present or on the verge of being present in our reality (environmental collapse, wildfires, etc.). they really push themselves somewhere new here while also still being able to compose something as simple and utterly death cab-y as "cath...". love every second of it

oh i forgot to mention that gibbard’s lyrics go from excellent to less than excellent from the photo album to plans. this is a huge obstacle for me because his lyrical voice is such a big part of this band. he doesn’t really recover on narrow stairs per se but i *do* like the lyrics on that record for the most part

all this is making me wish i’d given narrow stairs a vote wahhh

re: the open door, “my mirror speaks” should’ve absolutely been on narrow stairs, amazing song

whoa wtf i love codes and keys????!?!?!?!?!?

kintsugi is unfortunately definitely their worst album, a divorce record that feels hardly felt, too destroyed to provide anything of interest. i mean some of the songs are pretty good still, what i learned from this run-through is every death cab record is baseline fine-to-good, and "the ghosts of beverly drive" is amazing

thank you for today: also fine. also a little nondescript. also has some very good songs on it

asphalt meadows: whoa where did this come from???? uh. a great record, quite possibly? keep revisiting it over the past few days

Yeah, Asphalt Meadows was shockingly good, imo. First time I've truly loved a Death Cab record in some time.

This has been so much fun, having a much better time revising these than I thought I would. Hopefully will have a chance to hear the latter albums before this all closest as I like what I'm reading.

played Codes & Keys a bunch over the weekend, love it as much as ever. "Home is a Fire" the coolest thing they ever recorded, and then following it with the title track... so good it's unfair.

those thoughts on the subsequent albums are exactly how i feel, though i haven't returned to them yet

https://imgur.com/a/j0WgXqJ

I have to say I really enjoyed Plans again. Probably because it was my most played? Not enough to vote for it however.

https://imgur.com/a/j0WgXqJ

This was supposed to be in the OP.

Ignore me as the problem is much deeper, probably didn't make link public?

don't let any cool guys fool you, the first four albums (Airplaines > Transatlanticism) is an all-time run

― alpine static, Tuesday, 12 August 2025 18:00 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I enjoy up to Plans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYnTqtHWCdw

really love this live-in-studio performance of "long division"

^^^That’s great, thanks for sharing. Only a few days left and heading into Narrow Stairs next.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Ben Gibbard Ranks Death Cab for Cutie’s Eight Albums

https://www.vice.com/en/article/rank-your-records-death-cab-for-cutie-ben-gibbard/

1. Transatlanticism
2. Have the Facts
3. Narrow Stairs...

Going to do a Austin type of ranking here:

Something About Airplanes 3.0 I actually didn't get a chance to relisting to this but never warmed up to this one.
We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes 5.0 I thought this would be my vote but comes in second. What an album and my introduction to this band
The Forbidden Love EP 4.0 An extension to the last record and very good
The Photo Album 5.0 This is the record that ended up getting my vote, perfect length too
The Stability EP 5.0 Another extension from the last record and probably my fav EP
Transatlanticism 4.5 I was a bit underwhelmed by this, I think it might have been too long or just too much Death Cab in a short period of time
Plans 5.0 I really feel bad that I couldn't vote for this one too, this seems to be the band at their peak
The John Byrd EP n/a Not on streaming and never owned it either
Narrow Stairs 4.0 Probably the best singles of all their albums but does have filler
The Open Door EP 5.0 Last thing I bought from them and not sure if I ever listen at the time. These songs are very good and some should have made the album like Ivy stated
Codes and Keys 3.0 This is their left turn and sometimes had to remind myself that I was listening to Death Cab

I had a blast revisiting this band. I like them a lot more than I thought I would, in fact fell in love all over again. Do regret that I didn't finish but maybe I will get around to their later albums at some point.

Excited for these results1

/\really insightful link there, bee. great stuff.

agreed on that "long division" performance. no dis to others, but that was their best live lineup. also that clip illustrates what i was trying to say about chris walla's mannerisms while performing; docile and sometimes awkward, but everything intentional and purposeful. maybe i had just not experienced much good live music in my life up until then, but again: when i saw them i was completely fascinated just watching him. i rescind my previous analogy; it felt like watching a master sculptor at work.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Good turnout! The spread seems about right.

Now what for the next block?

shoot, should’ve polled this in 2010

betcha narrow stairs would win if we repolled w/o facts. zero votes is crazy, but i wasn't gonna vote for anything over facts!

thanks again for this poll, bee. very pleasant reminders throughout. i know i already said that, but it bears repeating.

also re:john byrd ep
it was an indie store exclusive, progenitor to rsd type release. i was working at tower and i couldn't even special order it. kinda wild that it's their only official live recording (besides the film, ofc). there's a very epic rendition of "we looked like giants" and it's good if you can't get enough of that era, but ultimately isn't going to change anyone's mind (like a lot of live albums, but i digress).

hey friends,
just wanted to share a photo that hopefully portrays just how much this band meant to me at one point:
https://i.imgur.com/LPuyRtH.jpeg

all in regular rotation for a several years stretch. i can't even imagine wearing band shirts as like a normal thing anymore. seems like halloween fodder or something. surely they make death cab mugs by now, right?