Give Up is the sole studio album by American electronic duo the Postal Service, released on February 18, 2003, by Sub Pop Records.

The Postal Service was a collaboration between singer-songwriter Ben Gibbard, best-known for his work with indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie, and musician Jimmy Tamborello, who also records under the name Dntel.

Gibbard rose to prominence in the early 2000s as frontman of Death Cab, while Tamborello gained a cult following as a pioneer of contemporary glitch music and electronica.

The duo named the project for their working method: the pair would send demos on burned CD-R's through the mail, adding elements until songs were complete.

Gibbard rose to prominence in the early 2000s as frontman of the indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie, while Tamborello gained a cult following as a pioneer of contemporary glitch music and electronica.

The pair had met through Tamborello's roommate, Pedro Benito, who was in the indie rock group the Jealous Sound,[1] a band that had toured with Death Cab.

The band nearly disbanded after an argument on tour in October 2001; after returning home, the group decided to take a brief hiatus, setting the stage for a side-project.

[1] The production process behind Give Up involved Tamborello, based in the L.A. community of Silver Lake,[1] sending Gibbard, living north in Seattle, pieces of instrumental music on burned CD-Rs.

[6] The album has several guest musicians, including Jen Wood, a solo artist formerly of the band Tattle Tale, and Jenny Lewis, then known for her work with Rilo Kiley.

Ironically, despite the final name they chose for the project, they did not use the United States Postal Service as a courier; the CDs were sent through either FedEx or UPS.

Though he withheld the final number, he revealed the project had a very small budget, and that when combined, the five LPs the label distributed that year cost less than $50,000.

MTV's Brian Wallace described the sound of the album as a collision between "moody indie rock with the manipulated samples, keyboards and beats of IDM electronica.

[9][10] Pitchfork Media's Matt LeMay and AllMusic's Heather Phares both commented on the contrasts between the "cool, clean synths" and Gibbard's vocal melodies.

[9] On both Give Up and Transatlanticism, the Death Cab for Cutie album released the same year, Gibbard lyrically explores distance and "the ability of relationships to survive [separation].

[15] "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" opens with a series of moody, deep-sounding chords designed to emulate the sound of an organ—an edited version of a K2000RS preset called NeoProfit.

The LP arrived with virtually no promotion; besides the ensuing tour, there was "little mainstream press, and airplay [was] confined to college stations and public radio.

Through their relationship with the Alternative Distribution Alliance, Sub Pop began to carry the album at larger retailers, such as Tower Records, Virgin Megastore, and Best Buy.

Within two years of its debut, "Such Great Heights" was certified gold for sales of over 500,000 copies by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The LP did not debut on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 Albums chart until thirteen months after its release,[28] which was credited to its slow-building online buzz and licensing in TV commercials.

[19] The RIAA certified Give Up gold in February 2005; that month, the band released a third and final single from the LP, "We Will Become Silhouettes", backed with a new song, "Be Still My Heart".

[37] Will Hermes of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "Ben Gibbard radiates claustrophobia, so the shut-in synth-pop of this side project fits him like a leotard", calling Give Up "the near-perfect pop record that's eluded his main group.

"[38] Michaelangelo Matos of Rolling Stone described the album as "a cuddly little new wave reverie" and wrote that "Tamborello's delightful pings and whistles fit Gibbard's whimsy perfectly.

"[9] In a retrospective piece for Pitchfork, Matt LeMay called the album "a pretty damned strong record, and one with enough transcendent moments to forgive it its few substandard tracks and ungodly lyrical blunders".

[47] In August 2003, the United States Postal Service (USPS) served the band with a cease and desist letter citing tarnishing and dilution of their trademark.

Gibbard shared a statement on the duo's official site, calling it a "shot-for-shot re-creation" and claiming disappointment that it "was executed without our consultation or consent."

Nick Harmer, bassist of Death Cab for Cutie, joined the trio on the trek, managing the group and the visual accompaniment that was projected behind their performance.

Initially, their booking agent had trouble explaining the project to promoters; Gibbard noted that the only selling points were that it featured members of Death Cab and Rilo Kiley.

In 2013, The Postal Service reunited in celebration of the album's tenth anniversary, performing to larger crowds at much bigger venues than a decade prior.

[58] In addition, the Creators Project (a partnership between Intel and Vice) produced a 15-minute documentary on the tour and the album, titled Some Idealistic Future.

Both tracks, and the bulk of the rest of the band's recorded output, feature on a bonus disc of the tenth anniversary reissue of the album.