The other day, a 15-year-old girl tried to add me as a Facebook
friend. While this is probably some people’s idea of a good
time (or a first-draft premise for the film “Hard
Candy”), I already feel awkward enough in real life running
into former campers from my summer at Camp Hess Kramer.
To make matters worse, this was someone who I’d never met,
the sister of a girl I barely knew in high school. I have no idea
how she found me or how she’ll react to the prominent
placement of my friend Tecate in my now-defunct profile picture, so
thanks a lot, Facebook.
The whole high school-college thing is one of the new features
the ‘book is trotting out to try to keep up with MySpace.
Thankfully, most people are using the ridiculous
“status” feature to be ironic rather than actually
supplant their AIM away messages, but some of the new gimmicks are
actually pretty interesting.
Being the list-obsessed guy I am, my personal favorite is the
trend-tallying Facebook Pulse.
Most of the UCLA edition makes sense ““ real-life
Californians like “The O.C.” less than the rest of the
country, especially after the train wreck of the last seven
episodes or so. Not that I’m keeping track. And being the
discerningly hip viewers we are, we love “Arrested
Development” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind.”
It’s the music front that throws me off: Apparently, four
years later, The Postal Service is still one of our collective
favorite bands.
A quick look at the rest of the list isn’t too surprising:
Jack Johnson (obligatory Santa Barbara surfer dude), Green Day
(obligatory Bay Area punk), The Beatles (obligatory best band ever)
and The Killers (obligatory worst band ever) are all in the top
10.
But The Postal Service just doesn’t make sense, especially
not when it’s actually a notch above Ben Gibbard’s real
band, Death Cab For Cutie.
There was something in the marriage of Gibbard and Jimmy
Tamborello (aka Dntel) as The Postal Service which captured a
strange cultural zeitgeist.
Previous to 2002’s “Give Up,” Gibbard’s
might-as-well-be-emo vocals had been constrained by Death
Cab’s low-budget indie rock. But he found a better backing
band in Tamborello’s Playskool IDM (intelligent dance music
““ like Moby, minus Gwen Stefani and the baldness).
A few electronic beats and cheeseball lyrics later, The Postal
Service had captured the hearts of anyone looking for an indie
alternative to the ironic masculinity embodied by The Strokes.
I say they were in the right place at the right time.
“Such Great Heights” is a great song, but a novelty
one, and anyone in possession of the next Death Cab album or
Dntel’s other projects would likely agree.
Even the band itself didn’t do the best versions of its
own songs. The Shins’ and Iron & Wine’s versions of
“We Will Become Silhouettes” and “Such Great
Heights,” respectively, demolish the originals, and anybody
who’s checked Facebook Pulse knows how much UCLA loves
“Garden State,” the popular film that features both
bands on its soundtrack.
More importantly, the band was a side project. The duo
hasn’t really recorded since, and there were plenty of
equally popular albums in 2002 that hold up better today:
Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” or
Interpol’s “Turn on the Bright Lights,” for
instance.
According to the Pulse, Gibbard infatuation in any form looks
like a SoCal phenomenon, but even Seth Cohen had the good sense to
leave “Give Up” out of his Chrismukkah gifts.
The Postal Service has come back in a tiny way lately, doing a
remix of indie diva Feist’s “Mushaboom” for her
new album “Open Season.”
The remix not only replaces the entirety of the original backing
track with tired Tamborello gimmickry, but splatters
Gibbard’s hyper-emotional wail all over what passes for an
interlude.
After Death Cab’s disappointing “Plans,” the
guy seems to be experiencing all kinds of downward spiraling, but I
guess that’s to be expected after attaining a big record deal
and the adoration of thousands of college students.
So what gives, fellow Bruins? Did we all just forget to update
our profiles? Surely we can unite behind another super-group
collaboration. Gnarls Barkley comes to mind, and if 41,905 friends
on MySpace is any barometer of popularity, we’ll probably
like them too.
If you’re just happy Fall Out Boy isn’t on the
list, e-mail Greenwald at dgreenwald@media.ucla.edu.