I've read an interview with them. They're definitely smart people, I'll grant you that.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 9 October 2009 02:20 (fourteen years ago) link
like if it was ever in doubt, they just spent two years reading about the way they look & what they sing about and the first single they drop from their new album rhymes "horchata" with "balaclava"
― it takes a nation of 51 to hold us back (J0rdan S.), Friday, 9 October 2009 02:21 (fourteen years ago) link
its pretty funny how throwing on a blazer has rendered this pleasant minor band who play a style of music no one really listens to anymore worth having strong opinions abt
and as someone who grew up in an affluent boston suburb i can definitively state that their stance is clearly playful and not irl wasp shit
― ice cr?m, Friday, 9 October 2009 02:21 (fourteen years ago) link
I guess you can read that in one of two ways: (a) they read the criticism of their image, and rather than cut against it to curry favor with their critics, they doubled-down on the image as an in-joke to themselves and their fans or (b) this is just the kind of music they write.
(xp to J0rdan)
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 9 October 2009 02:22 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah but that would imply that they were never in on it in the first place, and i think that's definitely not the case
― it takes a nation of 51 to hold us back (J0rdan S.), Friday, 9 October 2009 02:24 (fourteen years ago) link
i think it's both in a sense although if they CHANGED images now somehow i mean who the fuck wouldn't call them on it
― don't blame pitchfork, blame america (call all destroyer), Friday, 9 October 2009 02:25 (fourteen years ago) link
lol. I still listen to -- and enjoy -- some yacht rock. But I can't appreciate it without a ton of ironic distance (like, "I love this stuff for nostalgic reasons, but this band is such a bunch of tools").
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 9 October 2009 02:25 (fourteen years ago) link
but yeah i have read stuff that indicates that this is just sort of the stuff ezra is interested in and likes to write about
― don't blame pitchfork, blame america (call all destroyer), Friday, 9 October 2009 02:26 (fourteen years ago) link
("She's just 16 years old, leave her alone, they say . . .")
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 9 October 2009 02:26 (fourteen years ago) link
but yacht rock never really played up class signifiers did it?
I'm not sure about that. It certainly seemed like a bunch of 30 to 40-ish upper middle-class white guys, with a fruity drink in hand, strutting up to some barely 19 year old girl.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 9 October 2009 02:28 (fourteen years ago) link
So maybe not overt class signifiers, but it was in the subtext.
(Don't get me wrong, with the appropriate ironic distance of someone who experienced the era (tho I was v. young at the time), I love yacht rock).
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 9 October 2009 02:29 (fourteen years ago) link
By yacht rock do you mean Steely Dan, Doobie Bros, Hall & Oates? Because this doesn't seem like a modern day equivalent of that to me.
― Dan S, Friday, 9 October 2009 02:34 (fourteen years ago) link
they're certainly not oblivious to their privileged status, i'll give you that
― iago g., Friday, 9 October 2009 02:45 (fourteen years ago) link
Dan S: Not really. When I think "yacht rock," I think of Benny Mardones, Firefall, and Elvin Bishop, among others.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 9 October 2009 02:52 (fourteen years ago) link
There's a bazillion threads on ILX identifying (and praising) yacht-rockers.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 9 October 2009 02:53 (fourteen years ago) link
i dunno horchata is not as good as oxford comma or m79, neat arrangement notwithstanding. while ill agree that the unreconstructed punk rock dismissal of them is lame i can't help but wonder if there isn't a counter to that, people patting themselves on the back for 'getting it' or something and then elevating their music to some level of 'pop genius' that it really isn't -- it's just too relentlessly consonant and major key.
but when you look at it in context their debut was one of the best albums of 2008, or at least one of the most memorable. i wish the melody of horchata wasn't so repetitive because the arrangement is cool. but the new one should be good, and probably well-timed and marketed.
― uptown churl, Friday, 9 October 2009 03:49 (fourteen years ago) link
my fav song of theirs might still be "boston"
― love will terius apart (k3vin k.), Friday, 9 October 2009 04:09 (fourteen years ago) link
haha, didn't expect that coming from u - it is one of their best songs, i was ;_; that it didn't make the album
― it takes a nation of 51 to hold us back (J0rdan S.), Friday, 9 October 2009 04:10 (fourteen years ago) link
haha yeah the leak i downloaded 20 months ago or whenever had that song on it - wasnt til months later that i learned the song didnt really exist
― love will terius apart (k3vin k.), Friday, 9 October 2009 04:21 (fourteen years ago) link
cuz when you left myyy roomto go to the kiiiitchen, i imagined that you were deada morbid streak ruuuns throughthe whole of my faaaam'ly
― love will terius apart (k3vin k.), Friday, 9 October 2009 04:23 (fourteen years ago) link
seriously, I've always felt like "Love Plus One" is surely the biggest historical precedent for them in general
This is funny. I was thinking of Lloyd Cole as some sort of hidden influence, myself.
― Cunga, Friday, 9 October 2009 04:37 (fourteen years ago) link
pfork revu
― i got nothin (deej), Friday, 9 October 2009 09:45 (fourteen years ago) link
Okay, I kind of like this band now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnR-97_BGsU&feature=player_embedded
I can even play the guitar part. Sort of.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 6 November 2009 02:15 (fourteen years ago) link
I never really listened to them until a couple requested that song for their wedding that I DJ'd so I downloaded the album and now I find I listen to it all the time.
― dan selzer, Friday, 6 November 2009 04:37 (fourteen years ago) link
that's pretty much how it goes.
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Friday, 6 November 2009 04:51 (fourteen years ago) link
"cousins" is fun
http://www.mtvu.com/video/?vid=454602
― Fellini.Kuti, Friday, 20 November 2009 02:22 (fourteen years ago) link
"cousins" is great
video/song is straight uphttp://www.mtv.com/videos/they-might-be-giants/299742/dont-lets-start.jhtml
― some cooze (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 3 December 2009 01:12 (fourteen years ago) link
"cousins" is dope imo
― please banhammer don't b*hurt em (The Reverend), Thursday, 3 December 2009 01:51 (fourteen years ago) link
easily their best song
― some cooze (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 3 December 2009 01:57 (fourteen years ago) link
naw
― only mod can judge me (The Reverend), Thursday, 3 December 2009 01:58 (fourteen years ago) link
uh huh
― some cooze (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 3 December 2009 01:59 (fourteen years ago) link
"cousins" is fine
― brutt fartve (k3vin k.), Thursday, 3 December 2009 02:27 (fourteen years ago) link
it's definitely their most 'rawk', not that that means best or anything
― uptown churl, Thursday, 3 December 2009 03:13 (fourteen years ago) link
i miss burt_stanton
― max, Thursday, 3 December 2009 03:17 (fourteen years ago) link
this song is okay, maybe a bit too jokey or cartooney? especially the "i can feel it co-omin." not that they weren't cartooney on the first album, but this feels kind of silly.
― brooklyn we go ham (samosa gibreel), Thursday, 3 December 2009 04:16 (fourteen years ago) link
they were always pretty silly
― only mod can judge me (The Reverend), Thursday, 3 December 2009 06:04 (fourteen years ago) link
ya i take that all back. i've come around to totally liking this song in the last two hours. and the video is great, too.
― brooklyn we go ham (samosa gibreel), Thursday, 3 December 2009 06:07 (fourteen years ago) link
i wonder if anything is gonna grab me like cape cod kwassa kwass did last time
― plaxico (I know, right?), Thursday, 3 December 2009 12:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Cape Cod and A-Punk left me cold but when I got around to hearing more of the album I learned I liked them.
― Cunga, Thursday, 3 December 2009 21:12 (fourteen years ago) link
cousins - i like the fast guitar and drums playing but i hate (the) ska
― Zeno, Thursday, 3 December 2009 23:57 (fourteen years ago) link
Contra is now streaming on their My Space page:
http://www.myspace.com/vampireweekend
― Bee OK, Monday, 4 January 2010 05:05 (fourteen years ago) link
"White Sky" sounds so much like Graceland era Paul Simon with a South African mbaqanga band.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 4 January 2010 05:57 (fourteen years ago) link
cousins is seriously good.
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, 4 January 2010 10:26 (fourteen years ago) link
Stereogum Premature Evaluation
― moron oil (Gukbe), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 00:39 (fourteen years ago) link
it's not as good :(
― samosa gibreel, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 02:11 (fourteen years ago) link
took me the better part of a year to come around to the first one. maybe this will be the same?
― moron oil (Gukbe), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 02:13 (fourteen years ago) link
I do like Cousins, and generally I like the more muscular sound of some of these tracks. I'm still not crazy about the vocals but they're slightly less wispy here.
― pithfork (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 02:20 (fourteen years ago) link
cd rip on what fyi
― ice cr?m, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 02:21 (fourteen years ago) link