We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes is the second studio album by American rock band Death Cab for Cutie. It was released on March 21, 2000, through Barsuk Records. The band, which originally included singer-songwriter Ben Gibbard, guitarist/producer Chris Walla, bassist Nick Harmer, and drummer Nathan Good, formed in Bellingham, Washington in 1997. Their debut studio album, Something About Airplanes, was released in 1998 through Barsuk, after which Good exited the band. Between the two albums, both Gibbard and Walla released music via side projects, ¡All-Time Quarterback! and Martin Youth Auxiliary, respectively.
The album was developed over a period of five months between the three, and recorded at the members' parents' homes. The recording came at a transitional time for the band, who were on the cusp of adulthood with little idea of what was to come. Gibbard infused these post-collegiate anxieties into his lyricism, with his songwriting melding narratives with abstract imagery for the first time. The album is sonically downbeat, with its despondent sound and spindly guitar work heavily influenced by slowcore.
We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes received acclaim from music critics, with praise directed towards Gibbard's songwriting. Death Cab for Cutie supported the album with their first full nationwide tour, with drummer Jayson Tolzdorf-Larson joining. No singles were released from the album, though the LP was followed by an extended play, The Forbidden Love EP, several months after its release.
Background and development
thumb|Frontman Ben Gibbard (photographed in 2015) started the band in 1997.|alt=A man sings into a microphone while playing an acoustic guitar.
Death Cab for Cutie originated with singer-songwriter Ben Gibbard, formerly of the power pop outfit Pinwheel, while he attended Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. During a break from the group, Gibbard put together a demo of songs under the name Death Cab for Cutie, named after a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The demo tape was produced by guitarist/producer Christopher Walla, whom Gibbard had met at a concert. The cassette, You Can Play These Songs with Chords (1997), attracted significant local attention and prompted Gibbard to assemble a band lineup. Roommate Nick Harmer joined as the bassist, along with temporary drummer Nathan Good. Within a year, Death Cab for Cutie had signed to Seattle record label Barsuk Records, their debut studio album Something About Airplanes (1998) was released though.
Bellingham lacked employment opportunities or a real music scene, leading the band to relocate southbound to Seattle. Much of the former was tracked at the house of Harmer's mother's in Puyallup, Washington. She was working towards obtaining her doctoral degree at the time, spending her time in one half of the home. Death Cab for Cutie lived there for one month, working on the album at "all hours of the night." Walla found the perspective unsatisfactory due to the constantly evolving nature of his recording locales and equipment. In the end, he viewed his job as to do what best serves the song, and letting production flourishes complement the songwriting rather than distract. he subsequently renamed it Hall of Justice Recording. After We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes was completed, Tony Lash, an engineer from Portland, Oregon, mastered the album.
Composition
Music and composition
We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes is stylistically regarded as an indie rock album; Gibbard himself classified the band as indie pop. During his early 20s, Gibbard was influenced by the downbeat, slowcore music of Bedhead and Codeine. He felt inspired by Bedhead in particular, and incentivizing intricate guitar lines for the album that "weave" and "work through each other" over simpler chords. Walla also utilized a portable sampler, Dr. Sample, to distort samples and re-incorporate them in a creative way. For example, the pulsating tone on "405" was sampled from a Yamaha keyboard, distorted into the sampler, set to repeat and ultimately lined up with the click track. He cited Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker and fellow musician Elliott Smith as lyrical influences.
The first half of "Title Track" contains a softer, more lo-fi sound; Cohen assumed it was run through a low-pass filter, and likened the effect to "being heard through a thin apartment wall." The second track, "The Employment Pages", documents Gibbard's job hunting upon his moving to Seattle, from which he was routinely rejected. "I remember thinking, 'I have a degree in environmental chemistry, I worked in a lab and I can’t get a job stocking shelves?'", he said in an interview.
"Lowell, MA" was a holdover that was penned during the development of Something About Airplanes.
Critical reception
We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes was met with positive reviews from music critics. Chris Parker of Indy Week wrote that like its predecessor, the album received "glowing critical accolades," while Kimberly Chun of the San Francisco Chronicle said that it received "effusive critical reception in the national music media." A CMJ New Music Report editorialist branded the album an "impressive collection [...] In an otherwise flooded genre, DCFC stands out as one of the more innovative and skillful of the pack." Pareles included it in a listing for The New York Times "Worthwhile Albums Most People Missed" at the end of 2000, proposing that "[Gibbard's] wiry songs aren't as uncertain as their lyrics pretend to be."
Legacy
For its 20th anniversary, several publications published retrospective pieces celebrating We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes. Death Cab for Cutie has generally looked back at the album fondly; Gibbard ranked it as his second favorite album the band made, remarking, "[It was] by far the biggest point of entry for the OG fans. [...] Facts felt like we were a proper band in the world. [...] I just feel like that record represents the best of that era."
We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes was ranked the 14th greatest indie rock album of all time by editors of Amazon.com. It was ranked 27th on Pitchforks list of "The 50 Best Indie Rock Albums of the Pacific Northwest".
Track listing
Personnel
Death Cab for Cutie
- Ben Gibbard – vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, drums, percussion, Casiotone, organ
- Nathan Good – drums on "The Employment Pages" and "Company Calls Epilogue"
- Nick Harmer – bass guitar
- Chris Walla – guitar, electric piano, backing vocals, percussion, glockenspiel, samples, production, mixing
Additional personnel
- Tony Lash – mastering