When Two Door Cinema Club released Tourist History in February 2010, the indie rock scene was saturated with bands trying to replicate the success of The Strokes or the dance-punk revival of the mid-2000s. However, Two Door Cinema Club (TDCC) offered something different. They were cleaner, tighter, and unapologetically pop-oriented.
If you were a broke college student in 2010, you did this:
Artist.Name.Album.Name.Year.Format.Source-Group
Why was Tourist History one of the most searched albums of that year? The answer lies in the tracklist.
The album didn't reinvent the wheel, but it polished it until it gleamed. It fused the disco-punk of !!! (Chk Chk Chk), the twitchy electronics of The Postal Service, and the melodic sensibility of Phoenix.
If a listener wants to hear Tourist History today, they simply open an app. There is no need to hunt for file links, no risk of downloading a corrupted file or a virus disguised as a song
Hailing from Northern Ireland, Alex Trimble, Sam Halliday, and Kevin Baird arrived at a time when indie music was shifting away from the gritty garage rock of the mid-2000s toward something sleeker and more synthetic. Tourist History was the bridge.