I thought this topic was about circa survive

yeah okay

i don't agree entirely with steel about all those songs saying the exact same thing, literally, because as you already went over, they don't.  but!!!  all of them basically have an identical tone/aesthetic about them that is very very tiresome to me (and apparently steel) and in general while i think they're an okay if incredibly cheeseball band if you just listen to them once in a while, listening to more than an album or so once every few months leaves the distinct impression that they literally cannot do anything besides write sophomoric, saccharine love songs.

also another thing that annoys me about them beyond the general inability of theirs to do anything more than exactly what steel quoted is that clever lyricism you mentioned.  a lot of the more irritating examples are from the postal service but they're basically the same band in respect to their lyrics.  you've got stuff like "i kissed you in a style clark gable would've admired//i thought it classic", and i think this sort of exemplifies not just a problem with them, but more of a problem with our entire generation and probably even beyond that, and that's this uh... ever-present urge to be cinematic.  you can feel it in all of the deathcab/postal service songs.  it's MEDIA INFLUENCE exerting itself over his writing and it is pretty much more tangible in his lyrics than in basically anything i've come across in music.  people in our general age range, specifically indie/hipster  people, have this clear desire for their lives to be as classically cinematic as possible, and it feels like this is reflected in everything they do and say, as it's all just some unconscious attempt to reconcile their own lives with what they've seen and admired in stupid, improbable movies that despite clearly being fiction, still influence the way they act and their expectations of life.  i'm guilty of this too, for sure.

i kind of don't even want to consider this last part a flaw, but i definitely think it is, even if it isn't just specific to him or his band or even to MUSIC.  but it is annoying and destructive, and it's in the same boat that stuff like "heh.......irony" is in terms of THINGS THOSE PEOPLE DO THAT ARE DUMB.  it's just this skewed self-image that they've erected based on shit they have been force fed all their lives about like... how people should act and what romance is and all that.  that's not technically a problem with his lyrics, but it's a problem with the intent behind them, which i think is still valid.  i'd actually like you to come back and talk about this a bit because i'm not even sure it's fair of me to fault him for being OVERLY ROMANTIC in his lyrics, even if i can fault him for being overly romantic in his worldview and expectations of life, so yeah.

yeah this isn't a new thing, but in the past half century or so, the sheer amount of media we are bombarded with basically everywhere we go from the time we are conscious enough to ABSORB INFORMATION to the time we die has multiplied many many times over, and as a result, the role that STORIES play in our lives has skyrocketed i think.

I don't hate his voice, but I don't like the music itself that much.