TOP 10 NOW: \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\shawty got poll poll poll poll poll poll poll (part II: 2008 ALBUMS)/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

at least not without the input of burt_stanton

Then again I have a knee-jerk suspicion of stuff with lyrics that politically i might agree with, because usually it just makes me doubt and even hate my own politics.

i am much the same, which is why NA was so mind-blowing for me! fyi the original argument was here

^^^heard one song from this, it was really really really really really boring

Considering that like, yesterday, on this thread you’d never heard of the band and then reacted to a song someone posted from the second album, we can note this as a well-considered pronouncement

(the album is indeed full of really boring songs, but fuck, ban l____ j_____)

8 zillion xposts cos this shit goes too fast

By this standard, no rock music would even exist.

would that it were so

apart from the yeah yeah yeahs

brilliant argument sir

xxp

"i mean, i just plain don't like their music, but doesn't it bother anyone else that they MARKET the fact that they are ivy league kids?"

What should they do instead? (genuine not-baiting question) Wouldn't Ivy League kids be kind of damned regardless?

I don't think this album sounds nearly as much like afrobeat (!) or even African guitar pop as people always say. I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

adopts the music of the impoverished and then throws like a jillion upper class-signifiers into the lyrics

"hey, what do you think afrobeat's lacking? i know, a white indie boy vocalist!"

I was going to say that anyone making the straight jump from afrobeat to Vampire Weekend is missing a few crucial steps along the way but then I remembered that my life is too short to argue about race, class and Vampire Weekend on the internet, which is why I never clicked on that thread again after January 2008.

Or what Tim said.

nobody has been this blatant about it in the past, johnny fever.

and yeah, i'll give it up. i haven't bothered to peruse the band's thread yet, so i'm in the dark about the lengths to which this has been discussed already

Yeah, the afrobeat influence is severely overemphasized by those critiquing it. Not by the music itself.

i think the VW defenders' tactic is usually to talk about how boring it would be to argue about race, class etc, as a means of avoiding the central issue, which is that DUDE. CANNOT. SING. AT ALL. his voice is just a horrible, horrible sound.

When you're given a song to listen to on an album thread by a band whose album is predicted to place, it's a fair assumption that the song is on that album. It's also fair to say that one is allowed to comment on the song based upon one's reaction to it. In other words, stfu.

so if they aren't aping afro pop what are they aping?

i mean it's just one influence but it is a strong one.

also- many bands come from upperclass backgrounds and do not name a song 'cape cod kwassa kwassa'

After Clap Your Hands blew up a few years ago, ANY indie band singer who can stay close to pitch is palatable.

Considering that like, yesterday, on this thread you’d never heard of the band and then reacted to a song someone posted from the second album, we can note this as a well-considered pronouncement

(the album is indeed full of really boring songs, but fuck, ban l____ j_____)

I mean, this is some of the most pompous BS that anyone's ever aimed my way here

(I had heard of them btw, in passing)

many bands come from upperclass backgrounds and do not name a song 'cape cod kwassa kwassa'

They didn't name that song, they stole it off the underpaid African roadie who really wrote it.

xxxpost - That's a stronger argument - I thought you were saying that it was offensive point blank that they were marketing themselves as Ivy League kids.

After Clap Your Hands blew up a few years ago

Thank fuck they've deflated by now. Horrible band.

I called it inoffensive because it is sonically so; if it doesn't grab my ear I'm not going to listen closer to be offended by appropriation or marketing or what-have-you.

Are you equally offended by Talking Heads, or Peter Gabriel or the Stones for, as was said, "By this standard, no rock music would even exist?"

Many (and yet not so) x-posts

So what if they named a song Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa and it has non-western rhythms? Seriously, so what.

Vampire Weekend are as closely associated with the music of impoverished Africa as Led Zeppelin were to brokedown Mississippi blues...which is to say, not very close. It's a building block in an entirely different structure.

i think the VW defenders' tactic is usually to talk about how boring it would be to argue about race, class etc, as a means of avoiding the central issue, which is that DUDE. CANNOT. SING. AT ALL. his voice is just a horrible, horrible sound.

― lex pretend, Monday, February 16, 2009 4:34 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

lex this is far from the central issue, tho i am interested in knowing which indie bands, that you dislike, you think have "good" singers

Are you really interested?

i don't like the way he sings like shit, whereas i like the way other people sound sing like shit.

vampire weekend on the whole is fucking PANTS

i'm ready for number 4 - then let the top 3 predictions begin

lex this is far from the central issue, tho i am interested in knowing which indie bands, that you dislike, you think have "good" singers

elbow, for one - incredibly boring and bad but dude can definitely sing. um, manic street preachers? obv i dislike them v much but his voice is good.

the vocals are weak, but let's not forget the uh lyrics. "bryn" is some sub-max tundra shit.

i'm sorry but can we not call an album that adopts the music of the impoverished and then throws like a jillion upper class-signifiers into the lyrics 'inoffensive'. also, that gd northwest/ivy league accentuation the vocalist uses is offensive enough even if you ignore any of the potential social implications.

i mean, i just plain don't like their music, but doesn't it bother anyone else that they MARKET the fact that they are ivy league kids?

― all-seeing eye of horus (psychgawsple), Monday, February 16, 2009 5:27 PM (5 minutes ago)

yeah i have to go to a meeting so i'll have to see where this retarded argument goes but there's just so many levels of rong and point-missing in this statement that i pity the people who are going to have to deconstruct it.

wow xposts

They didn't name that song, they stole it off the underpaid African roadie who wrote it.

haha just wanna point out that i haven't really even mentioned race, just class. i actually like quite a bit of neutered afro pop, but vampire weekend are kinda just dicks about the whole thing. and lex is right dude has an atrocious voice

Lex I always wanted to ask you this : Do you like Mark Lanegans voice?
xxx-post

WTF AT THE 'BRYN' LYRICS!

Ion displacement
Won't work in the basement
Especially when i'm not with you
Here in the heartland
A feelin so startlin
I dont know what i should do

Oh Bryn, you see through the dark
Right past the fireflies that sleep in my heart
You know its easy to see
Wait for the season to come back to me

Nights by the ocean
A westerly motion
That moves california to sea
Eyes like a seagull
No kansas palm beetle
Could ever come close to that free

Oh Bryn, you see through the dark
Right past the fireflies that sleep in my heart
You know its easy to see
Wait for the season to come back to me

haha everyone here is above defending vampire weekend

i can never take any VW fan seriously again. seriously WHAT.

Lex I always wanted to ask you this : Do you like Mark Lanegans voice?

i really do, actually!

there's just so many levels of rong and point-missing in this statement that i pity the people who are going to have to deconstruct it.

please enlighten me someone!

Which of the four remaining likely albums is least likely to lend itself to a fresh round of handwringing? I would like that one to place next, please.

Ion displacement
Won't work in the basement

Ion displacement
Won't work in the basement

Ion displacement
Won't work in the basement

Ion displacement
Won't work in the basement

Ion displacement
Won't work in the basement

Ion displacement
Won't work in the basement

o_0

haha everyone here is above defending vampire weekend

It's an old ass argument.

Vampire Weekend kind of hung over the entire year for me, in that it came out in January and everyone went AMAZING or SHIT. It was neither, to me, just a solid pop album.

Then I resented it for a while because I didn't hear much else that was better, or at least significantly so (aside from 3 or 4 albums). Of course the past few months I've discovered loads of great music that I missed out on (Grouper, GGD, etc...). In that time I've actually come to appreciate VW for being a really solid album. Good songs, short, nice production.

Think anything about them being Ivy League kids ripping off 'afrobeat' (only part of the album, imo) is a bit ridiculous. Nothing wrong with borrowing. Besides, their biggest influence is Wes Anderson soundtracks, surely.

Hurrah!!
xxxxxpost

though no arguments that it might be the smuggest album of the year.

No kansas palm beetle
Could ever come close to that free

^^actually this couplet is EVEN WORSE because not only is it retarded it's also really clunky and ungrammatical

Gukbe OTFM

Think anything about them being Ivy League kids ripping off 'afrobeat'

Play ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slums got so much soul

haha how is it smug

lol Matt DC, that guitar bit at the end of Desert Storm is TOTALLY balearic, something Studio would turn into a 9-minute beachbound veg-out

Lex, I can totally identify with that lyric seeing as particle acceleration won't work on vacation :(

Yeah, I somewhat awkwardly described Gang Gang Dance to people as Siouxsie Sioux fronting Studio, but the album's a lot more heterogeneous than that.

Heh Louis Studio is exactly what I thought of when I first heard that bit.