The Definitive Ranking of Death Cab for Cutie's Albums That No One Asked For

 Anyone who has been friends with me for over six months would tell you that my favorite band is Death Cab for Cutie (or Pinegrove, depends on who you're asking) (or Slaughter Beach, Dog) BUT I digress. Death Cab is my favorite band, so congrats, dear reader - you may not have known me for over six months, but now you know my favorite band. 

In celebration of Death Cab dropping their 10th album Asphalt Meadows, I wanted to compile a list of all their albums ranked by just which albums I like the best. I'm taking into account which albums seem to be top tier musically and lyrically and also which ones evoke any type of feeling of melancholy or nostalgia in me (as Death Cab albums often do). I also just love compiling lists and collections, so this is just very soothing for me. 

I'll be sharing what I love so much about the albums and I'll also be adding my personal favorite song on each album. So if you're looking for a deep dive into my critique of my favorite band, please indulge me and read this and talk with me about it. 

I will be going from my least favorite album to my favorite :) 

10. Codes and Keys

    Codes and Keys is simply mid. I'm always wary of people who tell me this is their favorite Death Cab album because it's just mid. It's acoustic and happy and mellow and doesn't really sound like typical Death Cab. I get it because Ben Gibbard was married to Zooey Deschanel here and I get it, he was actually happy and was making happy songs, but it made for MID songs. So thanks a lot, Zooey. (JK, she's a Capricorn queen and I love her). ANyWaYS, if you're looking for an intro to Death Cab, I would not look here. As an album, it's great, but as a Death Cab album - I'm not particularly impressed. It does get brownie points for instantly transporting me back to the year 2011, my freshman year of high school when I wore those bright colored skinny jeans and had a pair of corduroy Toms. Instantly takes me back there. 14yo me thought this album was magical. So I can't completely bash it. 

    Favorite song: St. Peter's Cathedral 

9. Something About Airplanes 

    OKAY, I LOVE early Death Cab. And as their first album, this gives me some very good feels. I ranked it this low because it's just early Death Cab. It's not as fleshed out as their later albums. I love every single song on it, but I personally never connected to it in a very nostalgic way, so here it is. A good album though - I'd recommend early Death Cab if you also like early Modest Mouse. Late 90s indie rock is the superior genre. 

    Favorite song: Line of Best Fit 

8. The Photo Album 

    Another early Death Cab album. A bit more fleshed out than Something About Airplanes so we like it. A bit more cohesive sounding. It's solid. I didn't connect with this album as much when I was younger which is why it's also ranked low, but absolutely worth checking out because there are some absolute gems on this album. ALSO this album contains their only song that mentions the city of Denver (Styrofoam Plates) and obviously I am biased because I live in Denver, Colorado and it's my favorite city. Okay moving on :)

    Favorite song: A Movie Script Ending

7. Thank You for Today

    Ah yes, Death Cab's 9th album. This album pulled me through my years of undergrad and carried me through grad school and now I have Asphalt Meadows to carry me through the rest of my 20s. This album takes me instantly back to Greeley, Colorado and walking around the University of Northern Colorado campus in the late summer/early school year while I mulled over my thoughts on why my best guy friend ghosted me three years prior. I cried a thousand times listening to "I Dreamt We Spoke Again" and "Summer Years". My enneagram 4 personality was screaming. I put this album in the 7th place slot because although this album does slap especially for my own nostalgic reasons, musically and lyrically, it's just average for a Death Cab album in my opinion. I still will sing every single lyric to every single song though. Also Ben's lyrics "Were you happier when you were poor?" haunt me every single day as I'm this close to abandoning my masters degree to be a barista and live in shitty houses in Greeley again.

    Favorite song: 60 & Punk

6. Kintsugi 

    Another album that takes me instantly back to senior year where I had a sick need to win every single competition in high school and before I moved to Arkansas for my freshman year and wanted to die every single day. I listened to the HELL out of this album. I used this album specifically to get all my friends into Death Cab for Cutie. It was the gateway drug to Death Cab. We love her, we honor her, and we love the Japanese concept for the album title. "The Ghosts of Beverly Drive" while about California, instantly takes me back to being nauseous in the South and fighting for my life and while that sounds like a bad thing, dear reader, I have a knack for romanticizing the past whether it was good or bad. Also, Ben Gibbard got sad over his divorce with Zooey Deschanel as this was the album that followed Codes and Keys. A Capricorn ruined his life and I relate to that. Thanks for creating the sad music again, Ben. We love you, Kintsugi! 

    Favorite song: No Room in Frame 

5. Asphalt Meadows 

    I have indeed listened to this album twice since it came out two hours ago. Let me tell you, dear reader, I WEEPED while listening to "Rand McNally" while I sat in the bath and watched the lavender buds in the lavender bath salts I used float around me and comfort me while I literally sobbed while listening to this song. "Roman Candles" dropped a few weeks after I went through a breakup and a few weeks before I graduated from my masters program. I remember listening to it for the first time during a break in my Lifespan Development class with my friend who is also a huge Death Cab fan and I remember feeling really comforted with the line that Ben repeats throughout it: "I am learning to let go of everything I tried to hold". So simple, yet so comforting as I felt like I was losing so much and gaining so much at the same time. I started my grad school journey with a Death Cab album (more on that later) and I ended my grad school journey with a Death Cab album. This album feels incredibly hopeful in a way, yet there also seems to be a theme of anxiety and uncertainty towards the future. Very fitting for my life right now. I listened to "Here to Forever" on a dock in Dubrovnik, Croatia with a friend as we looked at the full moon that night. Lavender also just grows everywhere there. It all felt very cyclical and certain. I listened to it again with a friend on a bench across the street from my hostel in Lisbon. Ben speaks to my existential fears in that song as he typically does. This album makes me want to envision life growing up in a city in the same way I wanted to envision growing up in the suburbs a la The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. This album also branches out from Death Cab's sound in the past two albums (Thank You for Today and Kintsugi) and feels like a step up creatively. I cannot recommend this album enough. 

    Favorite song: Rand McNally

4. Narrow Stairs 

    THIS ALBUM !! Ben Gibbard has stated he was incredibly depressed when he wrote this album and it shows. The songs are top tier immaculate perfection. They are all incredibly sad and make you feel slightly hopeless and pretty discouraged. Lyrically, this album slaps. I listened to "Cath" a lot when I went through my first serious breakup and that was probably the moment I realized I had an insecure attachment style. This was also my ex's favorite Death Cab album, so the nostalgia is thick with this one. Musically, this is Death Cab's most dissonant, heavy, alt rock album. This was also the first Death Cab album I listened to all the way through (!!!) because my parents owned it and would play it in the car. I was, like, 10 years old. I am not to blame for my current sad boi, male manipulator music. I blame my parents. Thank you , Mike and Heather. 

    Favorite song: Bixby Canyon Bridge

3. Transatlanticism 

    What I've heard as Death Cab's masterpiece album rings true. This is top tier Death Cab. If someone had never listened to Death Cab before but was interested, I'd point them to this album. Write that down. Every single song on here is so good. The album cover is... 

...iconic as you can see. If there was an album that was the embodiment of the month of October (my favorite month), this would be it. "A Lack of Color" instantly transports me to my hometown of Estes Park, Colorado back in fall 2013 when the Starbucks used to be a tiny Starbucks that was downtown and I'd go there and get a chai and walk around outside in the freezing wind with my friends. I want "Passenger Seat" to be my first dance song at my wedding. "We Looked Like Giants" is the most poetic way to talk about a hookup buddy/one night stand that I've ever heard. Ben Gibbard makes hickeys and avoidant attachment style sound romantic on "Tiny Vessels". Whenever I listen to this album, I want to drive through the canyon up to Estes at night and roll the windows down on my Subaru and feel the early fall air cool my face. I listen to "The New Year" every New Years Eve religiously so Spotify always notifies me it was my first played song of every year. If you want an album that brings the crispness of the fall leaves and the changing of the seasons, look no further. 

    Favorite song: Passenger Seat

2. We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes

    This album is pure genius. Imagine: you're a cishet 23yo white man named Benjamin Gibbard studying environmental chemistry and living in Washington state and you drop one of the best indie rock albums of all time. Now imagine: you're a 3yo child named Hannah Baker living in the suburbs of Kansas City with no concept that her favorite album even exists. And that is the beauty of late 90s indie rock, alright, that's it - I'll see myself out. Okay, in all actuality, We Have the Facts takes me back to different points throughout my childhood. I didn't discover this album until undergrad when I was living in Greeley, Colorado (haha yay!) but as Ben talks about being an undergraduate student at Western Washington University and singing songs about the shitty places he's living, I, too, was relating to that. Although this album is actually not my favorite Death Cab album (I lied earlier in this paragraph), it does contain my favorite Death Cab song. I think this album is just straight ol' nostalgia bottled up into some really good tunes. I think most people would feel nostalgic while listening to this album or maybe I'm just hopeful that they would. This song pinpoints various moments in my youth (much like how Birdie by Slaughter Beach, Dog does) even though it wasn't there throughout the entirety of my childhood. Some songs take me back to my living room in my childhood home while watching Bones (the Deschanel sisters are making many appearances in this post) and feeling the summertime air come through the open windows. The song "405" very much takes me back to working at the Estes Park Aerial Tramway through all my high school summers as my friend and I would sing this song about our "alcoholic summer" as 17yo children while we rode up and down the tram all day. This album reminds me of a road trip I took with my friend to Mesa Verde National Park. I think this album was the only album we listened to for the entirety of that March spring break trip. It reminds me of a bird sanctuary we visited. "Scientist Studies" in my very humble opinion is Death Cab for Cutie's best song and if you're interested, I'd say just listen to it yourself. In the meantime, enjoy my shrine I painted a few years back to honor the indie rock KING and his incredible lyricism. If you ever actually become my friend, you'll see this in my bedroom between an Arcade Fire poster, a framed Poor Bishop Hooper poster, and another painting I did to honor the masterpiece that is Richard Linklater's Boyhood.

    Favorite song: Scientist Studies

1. Plans 

    This album is a best friend at this point. Plans is probably my favorite album of all time and as my friends would also probably answer if you asked them what my favorite album was. (If they answer We Have the Facts, it's okay - silver medal for them). But seriously, I've been gifted various references to Plans over the years because my friends know I'm obsessed with the album. As mentioned in the Asphalt Meadows paragraph, this album is the album that brought me into grad school. I see it as a friend that has made its way through life with me. As it boasts what is probably Death Cab's most popular song "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" and the first Death Cab song I ever heard at the young age of nine years old, I grew up to only realize the true richness of the album. I heard "Soul Meets Body" for the first time when I was 12 years old sitting on my bathroom floor in my childhood room on the top floor of my family's house. I remember it so distinctly as the moment I fell in love with Death Cab. It was like a soulmate moment or something of the likes. I also have a distinct memory of listening to it in the car while taking the back way through Estes to bypass downtown in the fall and seeing the leaves all changing by the river. I felt complete. 

    I have a memory for every song. In middle school in my budding state of realizing I was attracted to men (:/) I used to listen to "Someday You Will Be Loved" and imagine what it'd be like to be a little bit older and in a relationship with someone. As a 13yo I liked the aspect of drama in that imaginary relationship. I used to imagine dating someone and walking around a suburban neighborhood with him at nighttime. I guess with nothing to do but walk and also with no other ending to the scenario other than him breaking up with me and me finding someone who actually loves me. In retrospect maybe I was a sad 13yo. "Summer Skin" transports me to outside a high school around 6pm standing by the swing set and looking at cigarette butts on the ground. The older I've gotten the more I understand what Ben was trying to say in "Brothers on a Hotel Bed" because it can be really depressing and isolating when you're in bed next to the person you are or were dating and you feel really nothing towards them. How do you process that? How do we move on? These themes are in every single song off Plans - the title itself a reference to "What Sarah Said": "And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time". 

    I had an interview at DU for my MA program scheduled a couple weeks before COVID hit. I was indeed living in Greeley at the time. I was indeed in love with a man who had just gotten into a relationship and I was very unwell. I was excited that I had gotten to the second phase in the interview process at DU and was anxious on my drive down to Denver for my interview. When I told the other potential students who were there who the person was who was interviewing me for the program, they all said, "Yikes, he's a scary professor, good luck." Dear reader, he did indeed let me into the program and he was indeed my advisor and is still scary all the same. My interview with him was the last of the whole day. I was happy about it in a way because psychologically we remember the first and the last in a group of things the most significantly. There was one other person in the room who also had an interview with another professor. I recall we were helping stack chairs and clean up the room while we waited. I chatted with her and we left for our interviews at the same time. We wished each other good luck. 

    I went into my advisor's office and he did not ask me a lot of questions about forensic psychology. Instead he asked what books I was reading and what my favorite piece of art was. I told him my favorite piece of art was Plans by Death Cab for Cutie because it dealt with the concept of loss. We lose and we grieve and that is the human experience. All of life is an act of letting go and grieving, yet there is solidarity and hope in that. With my future clients as a therapist may I never forget my humanness and may I never forget that we have all lost and are losing and the thing that ties us all together is death. But while we're here we build relationships. And during my time in grad school I noticed the times I was withdrawing and chose then to seek connection. I realized that being gentle to others and maintaining relationships is the most precious thing we have. I told my professor about Plans. I got into the program. The girl that was waiting with me for her interview at the end of the day also got into the program. And we became friends! And she was the one I listened to "Roman Candles" with a few weeks before I graduated! And Death Cab also coincidentally, and maybe not at all coincidentally, is her favorite band, too. We saw them a year ago at Red Rocks, almost a year to the day that "Asphalt Meadows" came out. 

   What started my grad school journey was Plans and realizing that what tied us together was loss and death as Ben Gibbard so eloquently explains throughout the album. While we have the abundance of grief on this Earth, I think "Asphalt Meadows" carried me gently out of the program and into this new, untethered phase of life I'm in. With loss, I am reminded we have abundant hope. With the heaviness of grief, I am also reminded of the bitter sweetness of letting go. 

    Favorite song: Soul Meets Body