How to Listen to The New Pornographers and Death Cab for Cutie for the First Time on the Same Night in 2005

in just 25 easy steps

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one. be 14 years old.

two. login to OiNK.me.uk and download the top 2 albums of the past month on a cool night in September. you’re specifically wild for this one.

three. load them onto your mp3 player. your first iPod - a black 30 GB iPod Video - was the one that had Demon Days on the packaging, and you got it for Christmas, so that won’t be for a few months. you must be listening on your little grey SanDisk thumbstick mp3 player. 1 gig of space. you make it count.

four. be on a bus. the memory is that you’re on a dark bus in the circle. the timing might not make sense, to be honest. but that’s the memory. you can see your high school friends yelling, sitting on the edges of the wide, grey seats, huddling and pointing and having a good time. it might be a mishmash, but the vibe is correct, and that’s what matters.

five. Twin Cinema kicks off messy and dissonant. that is not usually your shit - you’re already a real risk-taker sticking with this. very punk rock.

six. Neko sings in your left ear like 8 seconds in and that’s it. that’s ball game.

seven. “Use It -> “The Bleeding Heart Show” - “Jackie, Dressed in Cobras” is an insane run. a spectacle. spotlight showcasing. that’s The New Pornographers at their peak, at least right now. the thing is: they’ll keep peaking. it’s wild.

eight. “Use It” defines you. you’ll listen to its rolling urgency obsessively for months. and also years. that song is so simple, but it’s the keys that light it up. it might as well be Blink-182 for moms. it’s that good. “The Bleeding Heart Show” was Fleetwood Mac, but for you, specifically. then “Jackie, Dressed in Cobras” kicks down the door. feels like the album got intercepted by a fucking alien. most consistent, reliable, great band in the world, to be honest. god bless Canada.

nine. you’re not even halfway through the album and that back half is not a joke. this album is 14 songs long and you’re only just now on track 6. along for the ride. everything after “Jackie” is one long song, to you, forever.

ten. Plans on the ride home.

eleven. Transatlanticism was never ~your album~. yours was Plans. it’s overproduced, polished, sealed tightly in clingwrap for absolute freshness. nothing in, nothing out. uncanny valley vibes. Stepford Wives energy. it’s perfect. you coast on it, only ever drifting along it.

twelve. “Marching Bands of Manhattan” is hypnotic. how do you play that for a high schooler and not absolutely change their life? the ramp and the screech before the swell. iconic.

thirteen. “Soul Meets Body” is autumn. wet sidewalks littered with leaves. backpacks. rain on your glasses. how did they get the acoustic guitar to sound like that. that specifically. it’s right there but it’s so synthetic. they’ll never tell. the imperfections never existed in the first place. it’s got BELLS, TOO?! the resonance in the right ear?! jesus christ, you’ve literally never heard that before until tonight - the 2023 tonight, but i guess also the 2005 one.

fourteen. there are a couple couples in the hot tub in 2023 and you can only hear them in between songs and one of them said Chicago. you miss it. but you’re not sure which part. you have some ideas but then - when you’re actually thinking about it - you’re having a hard time imagining grasping that same joy you did thinking about it.

fifteen. “Summer Skin”: autumn. that rhythm section. trot along.

sixteen. a few nights ago 2023 at The Armory, you were leaning on the rail next to the soundboard. you couldn’t see, but you’re just the right height to vibe. they played “Passenger Seat”, which almost closes out Transatlanticism. we all know this. when it didn’t transition into “Different Names for the Same Thing”, you felt that. that’s why it’s not your album. in 2006 when you downloaded that bootleg of the set from the Which Stage at Bonnaroo and heard them open with “Passenger Seat” into “Different Names”, that changed it all. they permanently recontextualized that. you finally heard it in person, front row off to the left in Omaha, NE, Wednesday night 2012. you took that trip on a whim with a coworker from the Music Tech Lab. you drove your roommate’s car, you slept on dude’s couch, drove back for an exam in the morning. and now, over a decade later, by itself, in its original context, it’s wrong. it’s not your fault.

seventeen. as for your other apprehensions, anxieties, preconceived notions - you were fine. you’re a grown up. you can listen to a couple very important albums with a zillion other people, you’re not better than that. get over yourself, have fun, and don’t be weird about it.

eighteen. but you get bummed. it’s when and why you get bummed that’s weird, considering the opportunities presented.

nineteen. there are so many heads. you’ve seen photos from the tour. you can make it up as you go. instead you’re listening to fragments of moments. the backseat of the Nissan Maxima, dark and rainy on the way home from Milledgeville. math homework. soccer practice. Green Day. Windows XP. dementia. websites. CCD.

twenty. “Your Heart is an Empty Room” is such a vibe. roll around in that. it’s a bassline. you’d die if you ever got to dig into the multitrack session. that feels like endgame, to be completely honest.

twenty-one. i want to have been in that room. i want to hear the decisions, the discussions, the arguments. what the walls heard. how did it get there? why, at 50 seconds in to “Someday You Will Be Loved”, does the right ear get emptier for 5 seconds? what’s up?

twenty-two. in hindsight “Crooked Teeth” has some real They Might Be Giants energy. it’s all just math, everything’s connected. that paper robot music video off the companion “Directions” DVD? that was Rob Schrab, you fucking goober. it gets worse! you only put that together like a few years ago. it’s like when you figured out Self was the one who did the first song on the Shrek soundtrack and the Expedia Dot Com jingle and toured in Beck’s band. honestly? make a conspiracy wall. it’s time to go full nuts.

twenty-three. “What Sarah Said” is perfect. it’s one of Ben’s best, bar none. you’d kill for more of this. it’s pretentious, sad, and distant. “the TV entertained itself” is just one of those all time things. and then he hits you with the “love is watching someone die”? jesus, man. sounds heavy, then you overthink it, and then you think about it again. tilt your head to the side a bit for effect.

twenty-four. Ben (different Ben) just sent you some new photos of his adorable, massive baby. you can’t write anymore. you’ve probably been in the hot tub at least 2 hours. it’s time to dry off and go back upstairs and vacuum the fried rice you spilled all over the floor.

twenty-five. that new Petey album seems kind of like a big deal to you. in 2023.

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