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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.

Also, I sort of wish Nabisco was here to lay the smack down on Vampire Weekend and Max Tundra haters.

lollll i am just googling VW lyrics for my own amusement now, i didn't realise they were ALL THAT BAD!

What's up next Gang Gang Dance or Hercules and Love Affair or ...?

i'll admit they have strong hooks, but like i said VW just sorta rubs your face in their affluence. i'm not making some grand statement about ethnic music, simply stating my distaste for this band for using this tactic.

and i'll say it again- the vocalist sounds like he is dry heaving

Why would you tape my conversations?
Show your paintings
At the United Nations
Lil' Jon, he always tells the truth

WTF

neutrino splitting won't work if yr shitting

I think that bit is really quite reminiscent of Studio's "Indo", done slightly differently of course but with a similar vibe.

And yeah, lolz @ the shutting-down of the laptop, it's like some sort of crass wink :D

So go, I know you would not stay
It wasn't true, but anyway
Racist dreams you should not have

No excuse to be so callous
Dress yourself in bleeding madras
Charm your way across the Khyber Pass

SERIOUSLY!

kind of think it is better to sing about what they know rather than pretend to be some sort of punk band from the street or what have you.

xposts

yeah, their lyrics are pretty poor. i don't mind the guy's voice tho.

Walk to class
In front of ya
Spilled kefir
On your keffiyah

^^they're just goading me now

lex i really don't want to engage you on this point since it's you talking about vampire weekend, but the content of the lyrics are v inessential to enjoying their songs

If I actually paid attention to lyrics most of the time, I'd probably end up hating half of the bands I love.

kind of think it is better to sing about what they know rather than pretend to be some sort of punk band from the street or what have you.

hold on what

was waiting on that one, lex

Oh your collegiate grief has left you dowdy in sweatshirts
Absolute horror!

^^UH

lex that lyric is hilarious actually

hey lex what is boring about hercules and love affair/what do you recommend instead in that vein?

As a sophomore
With reggaeton
And the linens
You're sitting on

^^seriously they treat cultural references like the square pegs and the songs are round holes

cmon dude