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Such Great Heights
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Wikipedia article
"'Such Great Heights'" is a song by American indie pop band The Postal Service. It was released as the lead single from their debut studio album, 'Give Up', on January 21, 2003 through Sub Pop Records. The single includes a previously unreleased track, "There's Never Enough Time", and two cover tracks by The Shins and Iron & Wine of "We Will Become Silhouettes" and "Such Great Heights", respectively.
"Such Great Heights" ranked 27 on 'Rolling Stone's 100 Best Songs of the Decade list.
Background
"Such Great Heights" came together late in the recording process, and was one of the last songs the duo completed in June 2002. Its genesis came together "incredibly quickly," according to Gibbard, who felt it "seemingly came out of nowhere. It did feel that there was some sort of spiritual transcendence happening and the song being beamed down to me." For Gibbard, the song was a thematic departure from his more melancholy subject matter: "I think 'Such Great Heights' is the first time I've ever written a positive love song," he told 'Rolling Stone', "where it's a song about being in love and how it's rad, rather than having your heart broken."
The song was written by Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello, and recorded in early 2002. The final recordings include backing vocals in the studio recording by Jen Wood, whose other collaborations include work for The Black Heart Procession and Joan of Arc. The single for "Such Great Heights" was the first CD released by The Postal Service, featuring cover artwork designed by Kozyndan. The release of the single served as a preview for the band's album, 'Give Up', which was released a month later.
Music video
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The music video for "Such Great Heights" was directed by Josh & Xander, and premiered in April 2003.
Set in the clean room of a semiconductor fabrication plant, where, as the machinery assembles devices, two workers in bunny suits cast longing glances at each other. For most of the song, the two workers are primarily shown, interspersed with shots of the machinery working on silicon wafers. When the bridge comes, the video leaves the two workers as one is carefully taking a wafer from the other, and dives into a sequence of shots of machines assembling wafers; then zooms in on a bank of chips; then zooms out to show the chips are inside of a satellite; then zooms in on the Earth and down to the city block containing EnergySolutions Arena (now the Vivint Smart Home Arena), in Salt Lake City, however the block has been replaced with a computer circuit; from there, a match cut is made to a monitor in the factory displaying a similar looking computer chip; and this is the end of the sequence, cutting back to the two workers handing over the wafer.
The video was filmed inside a real fabrication plant run by Skyworks Solutions When the video premiered on iTunes, the Skyworks Solutions name and logo were blurred out during some scenes.
Josh & Xander later created a commercial for Apple Computer Inc. (now Apple Inc.) and Intel using similar footage. While strikingly similar to the music video, the commercial did not contain imagery of The Postal Service or a recording of its music. On January 19, 2006, Ben Gibbard stated on the band's website, "It has recently come to our attention that Apple Computers' new television commercial for the Intel chip features a shot-for-shot recreation of our video for 'Such Great Heights' made by the same filmmakers responsible for the original." In response, the band issued the following statement: "We did not approve this commercialization and are extremely disappointed with both parties that this was executed without our consultation or consent."
Track listing
# "Such Great Heights" 4:27
# "There's Never Enough Time" 3:33
# "We Will Become Silhouettes" (cover by The Shins) 3:01
# "Such Great Heights" (cover by Iron & Wine) 4:10
Uses in media
The song was featured on a 2004 episode of 'Veronica Mars' and an episode of VH1s Bands Reunited, and has also been used in several television commercials for organizations such as Ask.com, Kaiser Permanente, Target, UPS, M&M's, and Telstra. The song was also featured in the trailer for the 2004 film 'Garden State' and the Iron & Wine cover version was featured in the film and its soundtrack. An instrumental version of the song was featured as part of UPS's "Whiteboard" ad campaign, which was launched 6 January 2007, almost four years after the song was officially released. The song was the original theme song to 'Grey's Anatomy', and appears on its season one soundtrack, 'Grey's Anatomy Original Soundtrack Volume 1'. In Chile, the song was featured Bank commercial of BCI in 2017.
Cover versions
*Ben Folds covered "Such Great Heights" on Australian radio station Triple J using a piano, forks, tin foil, and glass. He also played the song live during his Fall 2006 tour, including once in his MySpace webcast on October 24, 2006, and on his Summer 2007 tour. He again played it on his Fall 2009 tour in Northampton Massachusetts, St. Louis, MO, Indiana University, and in May 2010 in San Francisco to close the show.
* Iron & Wine did a cover of the song which was featured on the soundtrack for 'Garden State'. It was released as one of the B-sides of the original Postal Service single.
*Firebrand Boy recorded a chiptune version of the song.
*Matt Nathanson has often covered part of "Such Great Heights" as an outro to his song "Bent".
*Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls has performed "Such Great Heights" solo on keyboard at live concerts, as well as releasing a ukulele version with Kim Boekbinder in 2011.[http://music.kimboekbinder.com/album/such-great-heights 'Such Great Heights'] on Bandcamp, accessed 2011-12-05...
*The Scene Aesthetic did a live cover on tour. They also recorded their version for the 2010 compilation "Rockin Romance II."
*English electronic artist FrankMusik also covered "Such Great Heights" and was a B-Side to his 2009 Confusion Girl (Shame Shame Shame) single.
*The New Standards covers it on their 2008 album "Rock and Roll".
* Streetlight Manifesto covered this song on their album "99 Songs of Revolution: Vol. 1".
* The Section Quartet covered this song on their album "Fuzzbox".
* Joy Kills Sorrow released a cover on their EP "Wide Awake".
* Postmodern Jukebox arranged the song with Kiah Victoria as lead vocalist.
*As It Is covered the song as a part of charity compilation 'Songs That Saved My Life'.
*Confide included their cover of this song as a bonus track on the re-release of their debut album 'Shout the Truth'.
Commercial performance
"Such Great Heights" was the band's first single; both Gibbard and Tamborello both jokingly referred to it as "the hit" of the album, presaging its eventual popularity. It debuted before the album's release as a physical CD single on January 21, 2003. The duo had hoped to offer more to listeners than a typical A/B-side release, and Sub Pop labelmates the Shins and Iron & Wine agreed to cover two of the group's songs. Iron & Wine's rendition of "Such Great Heights" aided in boosting the song's profile. Both versions were simultaneously popular, with Iron & Wine's version were both in the film and soundtrack for 'Garden State', as well as in television advertisement for M&M's. The original version was licensed for commercials for Target, Ask.com, UPS, and Kaiser Permanente.
It debuted on 'Billboard' Hot 100 Singles Sales chart, a ranking which only tallied physical sales, at number 30 on February 8, 2003. It rose to its peak position of number 21 the following week, and slowly fell after that. In total, the song spent eleven weeks on the chart.
The success of "Such Great Heights" was a grassroots approach. For example, in Boston, local independent retailer Newbury Comics campaigned for the city's alternative station, WFNX, to put the song on the air. Two of the first stations to broadcast the tune were KCRW in Los Angeles and KITS in San Francisco. In January 2004, influential Los Angeles alternative station KROQ-FM began playing "Such Great Heights", which bolstered the album's popularity. Sub Pop offered a free download of the song on their official website, which had been downloaded over nine million times by August 2005. Sub Pop A&R director Tony Kiewel was told by executives that the song had high "burn factor"radio terminology for a song that listeners might quickly grow tired of.
Despite this, "Such Great Heights" continued to sell. The single had sold over 25,000 copies by August 2004, and was later certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling over 500,000 copies, in June 2005. The grassroots approach was also apparent in radio airplay; while it originally peaked at #44 on the Radio and Records Alternative chart in 2004, its airplay was so persistent that it managed to break into the chart again in 2005, peaking that time at #50.
Charts
References
Category:The Postal Service songs
Category:2003 songs
Category:2003 debut singles
Category:Music video controversies
Category:Sub Pop singles
Category:Songs written by Ben Gibbard
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