Listeners who had been invested in the independent music scene through the nineties often view The Shins with minor distaste because they were a shot across the bow of the lo-fi dry-humored world of Pavement et al. To those whose ear was attuned to Lou Barlow, Stephen Malkmus, and Guided by Voices The Shins could seem embarrassingly sincere and overly polished.
Coming to them from mainstream music, the post-disco shellac of teen pop, the frat boy hyper dirges of Nu Metal, and the sad sack dribblings of Coldplay (the last of which, full disclosure, I was very attached to at the time) The Shins sounded loose, breezy, low maintenance and fantastically bright. They were a breath of cool perfumed air in a stultifying musical climate.
I picked up their first album from the rack in 2001 based solely on the cover and the Sub Pop label on the back. Revisiting it now I can still remember the immediate smile that spread across my face from the first notes of Caring is Creepy and which did not fade until well after the last song ended.
