Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

i've thought abt this for a while and i'm pretty sure this album is good so this matter has been settled fyi

what abt how the singer is always looking out the side of his eyes while the rest of the band is all yeah welp - dont u find that a bit off putting

ppl you're doing it again

i stopped listening to them because of that, actually.

sometimes knowin wht things are called is a class signifier

believe its called the internet tbh

i had to look up "hyannisport" on wikipedia 1st time i herd their first album and i never heard of horchata b4 so i dont think that really matters(?)

the lol cape - if they really wanted to snobby abt it they wouldve gone full nantucket

what abt how the singer is always looking out the side of his eyes while the rest of the band is all yeah welp - dont u find that a bit off putting

yeah it's a little weird he looks like he's trying to find a sniper

nah iv heard of nantucket so

im talking relative social status not obscurity here

also nantucket is a ghetto doesn't really work with the meter so u might as well admit u were rong

lol im just sayin even poors go to the cape

if they wrote a song called "man from nantucket" i probably still wouldn't like them but i might lol a little.

I don't think "inoffensive" is a insult when referring to this band. It's hard to speculate when a band's only made two albums, but I suspect these guys are, like Spoon, a really good minor band.

i agree w/that

So who's a major band right now then? Not disagreeing, just axing.

Why does everyone talk like Hipster Runoff on this thread?

bands that fall under the category "bands for people who listen to too much music" xp

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/01/have-u-caught-vampy-fever.html

I didn't mean inoffensive as an insult but it's not exactly a bragging point either.

is that HRO link worth clicking on?

Is an HRO link ever worth clicking on?

without apparently doing anything particularly original or special, an album by an indie outfit that 'builds upon' previous works becomes one of the most talked-about and feted records of the year

why

Writing solid, non-novelty, hooky album earns band fans. Who would've thought it???

i think we are confusing 'novelty' with 'interesting' maybe?

You're right. You've convinced me. I actually find the album very boring and I've been lying for the indie cred that I thought such a position might reward me.

dood, u been jaggerd

ha i'm just saying that the word 'novelty' is loaded with inappropriate connotations - it is as if experimentation or originality is some kind of non-serious jape - i do not like the word

Mordy oddly prescient. just wasted twenty seconds of my life skimming another worthless tl;dr Carles post.

incidentally nothing against VW but the pattern in my first post there is endlessly, endlessly recurring imo - it is not their fault they get 1500-post threads when other bands get maybe a couple of mentions

That's some Geir-level critique imo. Band must be original as only standard of value?

no i didn't say that

xp to alfred - they might end up as minor in the long run, but at the moment it seems as if they're blasting through the indie-pop ozone layer at uncontrollable speeds. there's a lot to that spoon comparison, but i think they might be standing in just the right spot with their mouths wide open to gain enormously from this whole 'mainstreaming of indie' thing that i hear is going on.

if you don't know by now why vw generate 1500 posts i really don't know what to tell you

So then stop acting shocked that people like the band even tho they aren't the most innovative force on Earth. (I'd actually argue there is something innovative about what they're doing, but that's irrelevant.) Are you bitching on the Owl City thread about the lightning bugs?

i'm overstating my case as usual but today at least this thread has been a hoover. there's a good chance I'LL like the band a little! my problem is with the devotion of so much thought and discussion and analysis to something that's pretty straightforward, not with the band.

I kinda think there's are some complexities in the Vampire Weekend thing. I'm on spec for an article about Jewish artists and afropop as a new mediation of Jewish-Black musical relations (riffing off The Right to Sing the Blues), so it could definitely be I'm hearing very different things in this album than you are.

hmm - that's certainly a way of looking at it. i'm concentrating not on VW personally so much as a wider indie malaise where albums become important cultural bellwethers and periodical yardsticks rather than, you know, artworks. viewed as art, it's possible to like VW and to appreciate their appropriations, and their songs. but like others before them they seem to be about to transcend a musical sphere where there's choice, and enter one where there's consensus. hard to quite describe what i mean but when this record ends up near the top of most year-end lists regardless of publication like certain other albums of late, my point will be made. the idea that (and i'm sure none of you are doing this) you can stop after hearing all the 'important' records because that is how 2010 or whatever should have sounded for you. as i say, none of you are guilty, i'd imagine, but the creation of indie consensus goes against the spirit of musical exploration. try not to suggest ban me, i'll be off this thread soon enough. not looking for trouble, just a bit exasperated.

I think the problem is that you participate way too much in this Hipster Runoff community. You gotta emancipate yourself, bro.

god, i mean, i get what you're saying, but acting like indie consensus could just stop happening is some serious wind-pissing and you know that.

what is "this hipster runoff community"

http://www.hroexegesis.com/

"An exposition of the philosophy of Carles as expressed on his weblog Hipster Runoff."

u kno. "wat is the big indie album of the year?" "wat is the brand of vamp weekend?" "can i be a vamp weekend bro?"

Like these "dialogues," if you can call them that, seem to be the background that LJ is freaking out against.

don't think that blog is a joke, either.

what is "this hipster runoff "community""

― max, Sunday, January 17, 2010 9:38 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

fixed

"the creation of indie consensus goes against the spirit of musical exploration."

There's always going to be a consensus. But that shouldn't matter, because no one's stopping anyone from seeking out music outside of that consensus. You just need to dig further. If you're ignoring "the spirit of musical exploration," you're either lazy or you don't care to move beyond consensus, and there's nothing wrong with that, either.

u kno. "wat is the big indie album of the year?" "wat is the brand of vamp weekend?" "can i be a vamp weekend bro?"

Like these "dialogues," if you can call them that, seem to be the background that LJ is freaking out against.

― Mordy, Sunday, January 17, 2010 4:39 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah but... these are just reformulations of questions that critics have been asking forever arent they?

lj is freaking out because hes lj and vampire weekend gets more press than mansun