Jam of the Day | The Postal Service – A Tattered Line of String

Let’s step back to 2003, shall we? To a world where Frankenstorms didn’t exist, and Avril Lavigne dominated those radio airwaves the way that Korean guy rules them today.  It’s a world where playing guitar in a popular “alternative band” also meant stretching yoga-style before going on stage, because you also, inexplicably, had to do helicopter jumps every five seconds, and twirl your guitar around your neck. And even though that seems lame-as-shit now, I offer up the theory that, without The Postal Service, Fleet Foxes would be wearing black nail polish and wrapping their acoustic guitar cords around their necks.

But, while wildly popular amongst aging hipsters like this guy typing, The Postal Service doesn’t get the genre-defining, or bad-fad-killing, credit that they freaking deserve. Nirvana and Pearl Jam cut down the hair bands. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones murdered Motown. I pose that “Give Up” was so different than anything else making national-waves at that point in time, that Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello singlehandedly drove an electronic-coated nail into the popular music bubble, currently being filled with greasy pomade and chest hairs by Creed.

So now it’s time to relive 2003, and we have unreleased songs via a deluxe reissue to guide us on our way.  “A Tattered Line of String” is the first one to hit the internet. Let’s all listen, and give thanks for everything wonderful we have today.