2016/08/28

The Postal Service vs. Owl City: A Comparative Essay

            I’ll listen to just about any music featuring a synthesizer. I also enjoy the novelty of hearing new things. This leads to a lot of YouTube surfing looking for my newest musical infatuation (AdBlock being a must for this). This essay isn’t about an infatuation though. Recently I found something different.
            The Postal Service (TPS) was originally introduced to me in a Todd in the Shadows video, where he referenced it as music that was difficult to dance to. As someone who doesn’t do much dancing, I was intrigued. I hit up their top tracks, and while I didn’t dislike it, I wasn’t captivated either. Before long I’d moved on and mostly forgotten about them.
            Sometime later, Let Em Riot was on the Beyond Synth podcast (yes I know this is a lot of namedropping, and yes I’m okay with it), and TPS was brought up as a synth band with strong lyrics. Owl City (OC) was then mentioned as being similar yet inferior (this comparison is not an original idea of mine). Likening TPS to my favorite synth act was a surefire way to get me interested again, but I also wanted to know what OC was about. What I found was a fascinating example of what I value in music.
            The best way to proceed may be a direct song to song comparison. Take “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” (“District”) by TPS, and “Vanilla Twilight” (“Vanilla”) by OC. First off, those song titles. Ironically, while “District” explicitly references sleep, “Vanilla” is the one that renders me unconscious through explosive boredom. In a contest for banal and generic song titles, it would give it all my votes.
Anyway, I picked these songs because they cover related subjects. I can only say related, because while “District” seems to be about longing after a failed relationship with regret and reluctant acceptance, “Vanilla” is about vaguely missing someone. Same theme, different scopes. Those description also say a lot about the depth and richness of the content.
Moving on to the music then. TPS is an example of what I really like about synth music. “District” is built on drums, a subtle keyboard baseline, and some nice electric quirks. Mixed in are some stings, guitar, and those scales (which were an amazing combination of whimsical and haunting). The music stays interesting throughout the whole song, plus the way the layers increase and the tempo picks up give the song a sense of building emotion. “Vanilla” feature a simple keyboard melody with what sound like stock synthesizer samples mixed in. The “big” solo at the end is the same keyboard melody, but some knobs were twisted to get it to sound a little different. I was not very impressed.
How about the lyrics? The vivid imagery and metaphor in “District was great. They show a story rather than simply tell it. For example: “I’m barely listening / to last demands / I’m staring at the asphalt wondering / what’s buried underneath”. I can see that relationship ending due to the mental absence of the narrator. OC’s lyrics… they tend to be trite, derivative, and filled with treacle to the point where I want to vomit. And never before have I seen such a perfect example of how rhyming can take all the poetry out of lyrics. I will admit that there are a few lines I like, such as “Cold nostalgia chills me to the bone” and “waist deep in thought”. Sadly, any ground gained was instantly lost by “The silence isn’t so bad / ‘til I look at my hand and feel sad” or “As many times as I blink / I’ll think of you / Tonight”. Ending a verse with a draw out “tonight” is just the absolute worst thing ever.
If not lyrics, then maybe the vocals compare better. Again, covering TPS first, I like their vocals. The mix is very clean. The two voices harmonize well together. The sort of distance in the backup vocals is good. I don’t really have the words to express exactly why I like these vocals, I just know I do. So, what about OC? What I want to know is; is that reverb an after effect or does his voice just sound that way? I don’t like it. Also, he doesn’t really emote. There’s just this constant mix of whiney and pleading in his voice that I find off-putting. I’m going to have to go for a thumb down on the vocals in “Vanilla”.
Let’s try the music videos. They operate on a whole different artistic medium, and may contrast differently. The clear 1980’s inspirations in the “District” video won me over right away. Those projections onto the bed are very “Burning Down the House”. But there’s more than just that. The video tells a story which is almost completely unrelated to the rest of the song, which I like. And the ending where the alarm clock displays the album title is super classy. And the “Vanilla” video? Well, mildly good-looking people gaze at a literal interpretation of a vanilla twilight while he plays his keyboard in a lighthouse. I also guarantee that the (lame) CGI in the “Vanilla” video cost more money than the entire “District” video. “District” has props literally made out of construction paper, and it looks like they just invited some friends over to be in it (I just want to be pals with that guy in the blue suit jacket with the beard, and I’m not sure why). Shaq is in the “Vanilla” video. This actually makes me like Shaq less, and that is just completely unforgivable.

Dude in blue suit with beard.
Is it just the beard?

Faces are certainly a thing that both singers have. I can’t possibly get upset over that. To be honest, my facial recognition isn’t the best, and when I first saw him I actually mistook Adam Young of OC for Ben Gibbard of TPS. I figured maybe the explanation for OC was just a misguided solo project. It turns out that isn’t true, and they’re different people. I still think they look fairly similar except that Young’s face is a lot more punchable. On a separate note, while doing my Google image search of faces, I found that Gibbard had a relationship with Zooey Deschanel and Young had one with Taylor Swift. Surprisingly, I don’t have an opinion one way or the other about this. I just found it interesting.

Ben Gibbard
Ben Gibbard

Adam West
Adam West

Well, what if these songs are just atypical examples of the artist's work? Further research doesn’t support that hypothesis. “District” is not my favorite TPS song (“We Will Become Silhouettes” is), nor is it my favorite music video by them (which is “Such Great Heights”). I feel safe in saying that “District” is not an anomalously good effort by TPS. For OC, I haven’t dug quite as deep in to the discography (for reasons), but “Vanilla” may be the least infuriating song I’ve found. Seriously, how can you get one thousand hugs from ten thousand lightning bugs? Either one thousand bugs are hugging you while the other nine thousand simply spectate, or you’re somehow implying that it takes ten bug to make one hug, and that is just patently absurd.
Ugh. It’s not that I enjoy trashing Owl City. Actually, that’s a lie; I’m enjoying this more than I should be. It’s that I feel a little guilty for tearing down something that some people like, misguided though they may be. I don’t even think I really hate the music, or else I wouldn’t be able to listen to it. The problem is that it makes me feel nothing, and this is a state too unsettling to be allowed. My mind has to create this disgust just so it can feel something. It’s both terrible and compelling.

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