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.

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

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.

There’s Two O’s in Talking about Top Gun

            Goose. Everybody liked him. A true statement, and the point where Iceman’s character softens up and stops being such a jerk. Saying it may have even saved his life. Anyway, it’s a given that everybody likes Goose, but why?

  

            First off, Goose is just so happy that you can’t help but like him. His attitude does so much to lighten the movie. More than just the comic relief, Goose is really what makes Maverick likeable too. Without his RIO around Mav would just be a cocky jerk. Watch the I was inverted scene and imagine it without Goose’s lines. It would be a dude bragging about how great he is in a totally not fun manner. It doesn’t help that he makes the “If I told you I’d have to kill you” joke either. Maybe it wasn’t so worn out in 1986, but still. Folding down your middle finger and saying “I hate it when it does that” is always gold though.

            Without Goose people might realize that they actually hate Maverick. People do plea for God to damn him what I counted as seven times during the movie. Two of those damning occur immediately after he does something against Goose’s advice. Buzzing the tower and leaving Hollywood’s wing were Maverick’s two big screw-ups, and they could have easily been avoided had he just listened to Goose. For the record, the flat spin doesn’t count as a screw up because it was proven by a board of inquiry that Maverick wasn’t at fault, but it could possibly be argued that singing “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” was a bad idea (she only let him sit down because everybody was watching).

  

Goose is also clearly the better singer

            In the end it all balances out, because Maverick and Goose make a perfect team. Maverick has all the raw flying talent, and Goose is the brains of the operation. In the movie RIO’s don’t do much more than call out radar contacts and crane their necks looking for bogeys, but they actually have a lot to do back there. A RIO (as in Radar Intercept Officer, and not rear as I thought for way too long) is in charge of navigation, communications, radar, additional weapons systems, and they have to look around for bogeys. Drivers get most of the glory, but the RIO’s are doing all the real work (flying a plane and shooting missiles is just having fun).

  

            They’re good together in a plane, but what I admire most about the Goose/Maverick team is how they behave on the ground, because Goose is the ultimate friend. He affirms the cool stuff Mav's done so he can stay modest (“It was a really great move. He was inverted”), picks up on Maverick’s jokes and runs with them (“Keeping up foreign relations”), and he call Mav out when he steps over the line (“I don’t think that’s such a good idea Mav”). Even when he advises against something, Goose will still play along and cover Maverick’s back. That’s a true fiend.

            That's what Goose was providing for Maverick, but what is Goose getting out of the friendship? Goose gets fun out of the relationship. He loves flying with Maverick, and he has fun hanging out with him. He doesn’t need anything else. Maverick has something to prove and is struggling to not screw up what he does have. Not Goose though. He’s just a guy looking out for his family, who's happy to even be in Top Gun. His wife (Carole) and kid (unnamed) can also give him all the love and support he needs. Speaking of Carole.

            Carole is just the best. She’s just so bubbly, honest, and adorable. How she wiggles around in Goose’s lap when they’re singing at the piano together! And that voice she gets when she says “Hey Goose, you big stud”!! She steals every scene she’s in, and she’s only in three scenes. Plus, two of those scenes were more than likely shot to be a single scene, since the costumes don’t change. It was probably split it in editing because they realized that Carole should be in a wider chunk of the movie. Her limited screen time doesn’t give me a lot to work with, but I know that I’m completely in love with her.

            Similar taste in women isn’t the only thing that Goose and I have in common. One of the things that endears me most to the character is the fact that I am a Goose. And it goes beyond our shared love of Hawaiian shirts and refusals to wear pants while playing volleyball. Stuff like striving to be funny rather than cool, along with an air of unapologetic dorkiness. Then, when he's left alone in the bar he just sits by himself and reads the label on his beer. That is exactly the sort of thing I would do. When I wear my aviators, people who know me don’t call me Maverick. They call me Goose.

            I’m still working on being able to play the piano and pull off a mustache. That mustache is indubitably great. It’s not showy or silly. It just works in a subtle but effective way. I would put it in my top five moustaches of the 80’s (That list being: Tom Selleck, John Oates, Hulk Hogan, Goose, and Freddie Mercury). Not to say that there aren’t other good flavor savers in the film:

            Okay, I’ve been stalling. It’s time to buck up and get on with it. Goose dies. And no cinematic death has ever had such an impact on me. Not even Old Yeller or Bubba Blue. It all just happened so fast. One moment Goose is the big hero for reaching the ejection handle while they're in the flat spin, then Maverick yells “Watch the canopy” (which bothers me because it makes it seem like Goose could have avoided it), and then bam (literally), Goose is dead. The last we get to see of Goose is just a limp body being lifted into a helicopter. There’s no hospital room scene where he gives some bathos inducing speech from his death bed. Goose is gone before we have a chance to process it.

            At least he doesn’t die in vain. This isn’t just something thrown into the script to jerk tears, establish stakes, or inspire the main characters to start taking things seriously. I already mentioned the effect Goose’s death has on the plot earlier, but I feel the significance should be emphasized. The way the entire plot shifts is still amazing to me. That’s not an easy thing to pull off as flawlessly as Top Gun does it, and it wouldn’t be possible if Goose wasn’t such a lovable character.

             While I’m on the subject, I want to bring up my theory about how death by dropping is the best way to kill a villain (like how Hans Gruber dropped Dumbledore of the 30^th floor of the Nakatomi School of Witchcraft and Wizardry). By the law of opposites, being rocketed at high speed upwards into something is the most heroic death possible. Also, seeing Goose’s empty locker on the aircraft carrier is very emotional for me, and I’m still mad about Mav throwing the dog tags into the ocean.

            Well, I think that does it for talking about Top Gun. I set out to write the definitive work on the subject, but I would settle for at least two people being able to read this whole thing. Hopefully I did Maverick and Goose justice, because this movie has had a massive impact on my life. I compulsively drop quotes into conversations, and get unreasonably happy just to hear a simple “Talk to me Goose”. I’ve had friendships that have started with discussions of this movie, and ended with a thumbs up and salute. Once a man borrowed my sunglasses and serenaded his wife with “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling”, and all the other men present joined in. I may never pay for a pair of sunglasses that aren’t mirrored aviators. At least until they stop triggering Top Gun references. I’m fairly certain that wearing them inspires people to like me, or at the very least talk to me. Top Gun helps me connect with people. That’s not an easy thing for me, so I will always love this movie if only for that. This essay also produced plenty of evidence for a best of all possible universes, so that was neat. I’ll end with some extra picture and my alternate titles, because I had way too much fun writing them.

Talking about Top Gun gives me a hard on

 

They must be Talking about Top Gun, I’m getting a hard on

That’s right Ice… man, I am talking about Top Gun

 

The defense department regrets to inform you that your sons are dead because they talked about Top Gun

 

Sorry Goose, but it’s time to talk about Top Gun

Goose, even you could talk about Top Gun in a place like this.

 

Hell, I’d be happy to find a girl that would talk Top Gun to me.

 

You’re not going to be happy unless you’re talking about Top Gun with your hair on fire.

Up there we gotta talk about Top Gun. That’s our job.

            Some people don’t like Kenny Loggins. Maybe they’re mad about how he ditched Jim Messina and left smooth music (the best Loggins and Messina song was “Your Momma Don’t Dance” anyway, which is explicitly about the superiority of people who rock). Maybe they hate the 80’s and everyone associated with it (which is ridiculous). Maybe they’re beard racist (is that even racism?). Whoever these Loggins haters may be, or whatever their reasons, I do not count myself among them.

  

            When he wasn’t teaming up with Michael McDonald to write smooth music and thwart the evil Hall and Oates (who sold their blue eyed souls to become New Wave), Kenny Loggins was making the rockingest movie themes of all time. Yacht Rock is good and all, but I believe this to be his one greatest destiny (best possible universe again). The only 80’s movie music makers who were even in the same league as Loggins were Harold Faltermeyer and Giorgio Moroder. What’s that? They both worked on Top Gun too. Oh geez!

Faltermeyer is known for his work on such classic films as Beverly Hills Cop, Fletch, and The Running Man. Wikipedia calls him "one of the composers/producers who best captured the zeitgeist of 1980s synthpop in film scores". I really can't put it any better than that. For Top Gun, he wrote and performed on “Top Gun Anthem” with Steve Stevens, which won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. Double Steve was Billy Idol’s guitarist, FYI, and he really puts on a show in that music video. Harold also wrote “Mighty Wings” which was performed by Cheap Trick. These songs book end the movie and their importance shouldn’t be underestimated.

  

            Giorgio Moroder was the genius behind much of the music in Flashdance, Scarface, and The NeverEnding Story. Boldly lifting material from Wikipedia again, he's "credited with pioneering synth disco and electronic music". Personally, I’ll always remember him as the guy who composed “Danger Zone”. He did have some help from one Tom Whitlock on this masterwork, and they also teamed up to write “Take My Breath Away” for Berlin. Moroder worked on a few other songs in Top Gun, but these were the two biggest songs of the movie. They charted at #2 and #1 respectively. That’s not nothin’. Moroder's called "Take My Breath Away" the work he's most proud of, so Top Gun was the peak of his career. The song also happened to win him and the film an Academy Award. He may have gotten a little carried away with the music in the board of inquiry scene, but I forgive him.

  

            Also on the soundtrack are Miami Sound Machine, and Loverboy, which is enough talent to get me excited right there. But we were talking about Kenny Loggins. Fun fact: Mr. Loggins was actually the fourth act to be approached to perform ”Danger Zone”. First asked was the band Toto, which I probably could have lived with. Next was Bryan Adams, who thankfully refused since the film glorified war (It sounds like somebody needed to realize that Reagan was in office and the 70’s were over). Third up was REO Speedwagon, and that might have been okay. Thankfully, they finally got to Kenny, and he didn’t have any legal problems, or ethical objections, plus he already had another song in the movie. I don’t think I need to point out what this indicates (B.o.a.P.U.).

 

            It’s hard to put into words how much I love “Danger Zone”. Something about the fusion of synths with electric guitar. And that saxophone mixed in at the end just puts it over the top. A saxophone is by far the hardest rocking instrument that you blow into. Then the lyrics are just so bad ass. Revvin’ up you engine / Listen to her howl and roar / Metal under tension / Beggin’ you to touch and go! I should admit that for quite some time I though the chorus was “I went to the Danger Zone”, and not “Highway to the Danger Zone”. Either way, that’s some motivating stuff right there. It’s perfect montage material, and puts the song at a solid number three on my list of all-time greatest montage music. For informational purposes, #1 is “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor, since that song defines montage music, and #2 is "Space Jam", because it’s time to slam jam. Put simply, “Danger Zone” is a song about being stupendous, and it makes me feel stupendous when I listen to it. I like “Danger Zone” so much that sometimes I think it’s the primary reason I like Top Gun. It is a little suspicious that I like Kenny’s big soundtrack hits in the same order that I like the movies that they were attached to. The lists go:

1^st: “Danger Zone”

2^nd: “Footloose”

3^rd: “I’m Alright”

Distant 4^th: “Meet Me Half Way”

And then:

1^st: Top Gun

2^nd: Footloose

3^rd: Caddy Shack

Distant 4^th: Over the Top

Coincidence? Maybe, but consider that I also like the second Kenny Loggins songs from those movies in the same order!? That order being:

1^st: “Playing with the Boys”

2^nd: “I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)”

3^rd: “Mr. Night”

Non-existent 4^th: ???

Who knows, maybe if Over the Top had a second Loggins song I would like that movie more than I do (or maybe it was that annoying kid or all the Cannon Films craziness). Before I go on a Frank Stallone tangent I’ll get back to talking about the K Log, and the logical next topic is of course, “Playing with the Boys”.

  

            Anyone with the intellectual maturity to get beyond the juvenile reaction of “ha ha, gay” can see that this song has some points worth discussing. I’ve already covered the music video in one of my top ten lists, so I won’t discuss it here. Also, it doesn’t contain any Top Gun footage, and therefore isn’t admissible as evidence in this essay. The song itself is actually kind of difficult to unpack. The music is an airy synth track with impactful beats and cheerful guitar riffs. It certainly sounds upbeat, and Kenny’s triumphant delivery with the, what I’m going to describe as “cutesy”, backup singing only reinforces this. Then it has lyrics like: When dreaming takes you nowhere / It’s time to play; It’s man against man / And all that ever matters / Is baby who’s ahead in the game; I said it’s just a boy’s game / But girls play too; In this kind of game, people get hurt / I’m thinking that the people is me (which is my favorite line, since I’m a sucker for describing an individual as people); and One of life's simple joys / Is playing with the boys. My reading of the song is the story of a man who’s in a relationship that's getting to serious for his liking, so he’s compensating by spending more time with his friends. That’s not certain though. Maybe it’s just about volleyball? It was featured in the movie Side Out after all. Or it could also be about a homosexual romance. I can’t be sure, but I do know that this song was responsible for establishing one of the most memorable scenes in Top Gun. I’m of course talking about the volleyball game.

  

            This simple game of volleyball may just be one of the most defining movie scenes of the 1980’s. Some possible competition is when ED 209 blows away a junior executive in Robocop, the water bucket dance in Flashdance, the ”That’s not a knife” scene in Crocodile Dundee, the warehouse angry-dance in Footloose, or Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. My money’s still on volleyball. It has everything: a rocking soundtrack (which I already discussed), excess (because of the way it is), unapologetic homoeroticism (obviously), and it’s a group of adult men playing a game of beach volleyball unironically (they took the time to tape up their wrists). It’s just a lady with big hair and some cocaine away from being the Platonic Form of the entire decade.

The scene isn’t only included to set the tone though, because it also helps develop all the major relationships in the movie. We learn that Maverick and Iceman have some comradery in their rivalry, because you don’t play volleyball with people you hate. Tension is introduced to the Mav-Goose partnership when Mav leaves to spend time with Charlie even after Goose begs him to stay. Then the relationship with Charlie is kept unsure, since not only does Maverick shows up late (I really like those inserts of Maverick checking the time, but who wears a watch while they're playing volleyball?), he also leaves early (because he needs to take a shower). That’s a lot hinging on this scene. I’m pretty sure the movie would fall apart without the volleyball.

  

            I said unapologetic homoeroticism earlier, and this would be a woefully incomplete exploration of Top Gun if it was to just breeze past that. A good place to start would be to look at all the scenes with sweaty dudes in them:

  

 

            I understand that it can be hot in Southern California or the Indian Ocean, but damn. Here are also some quotes I want to take completely out of context: “I want some butts”, “Hard deck my ass”, and “One of life’s simple joys is playing with the boys” (I’m not even going to touch the hard-on lines). Read those how you please. Slightly more substantial than out of context quotes is how the driver/RIO pairs behave more like couples than most actual couples. Look at them:

            They even dress to match:

            This is great stuff. I don’t know when homoeroticism became a word full of fear that movies are trying to change your sexual orientation, but I don’t see it that way. Where's the problem showing men in extra close relationships or excessive displays of manliness? It's one of the cultural distinctions that made the 1980’s so special. But like all things 80’s, I would be happy if it was still common today. Homoeroticism is like the other side of the coin that contained all those gratuitous topless scenes that were omnipresent in the decade (just not in Top Gun). Gratuitous nudity is another term that’s used to put down movies. I will admit that there are varying levels of gratuitous, but putting a topless person in your movie for no good reason isn’t a crime. It’s only appreciation of the human body, and I support it. One day I hope that homoerotism and gratuitous nudity will be used as terms of endearment, and not terms of shame.

  

It's okay for anyone to like this

            Also, those fighter planes were shot in a pretty arousing manner:

            That may have been a bit off topic, but I feel it needed to be said. But what about the big heterosexual relationship in the movie? Honestly, the Maverick-Charlie romance is my least favorite part of the movie. Except for the one in the airport bar, I don’t enjoy any of the scenes where they’re alone together all that much (I really don’t think I needed to see licking during the sex scene, but that paper airplane was nice). Their scenes just weren’t very relevant to the whole fighter pilot plot. Love interests are often woefully underdeveloped in this kind of movie (I struggle to describe Elisabeth Shue’s character from The Karate Kid as anything beyond “nice”), but I really would have liked something. For example, Maverick could have learned to appreciate Charlie’s knowledge of fighter planes and she could teach him something that would pay off later. They already set up a discussion of the MiG 28 and its flight limitations. I guess I can infer that she likes animals since she owns a dog and a parrot. She also had a PhD in Astrophysics, so shes smart, even if Aeronautical Engineering would have made more sense to me (I am a little biased towards engineers though). Romances just aren’t typically my favorite sub-plots, so I shouldn’t be too hard on this one. It wasn’t bad. I just feel it could have had more plot impact

            The Goose-Carole relationship is a whole other story. Like so much else, it'll have to wait until the Goose central essay finale.