Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

these feebs don't fucking have any swag

just when i thought we'd put animal collective down, along come this year's bête noire. fucking hate this band's music so much. it's not even the preppy thing, though the cardigans are an abomination

"this year"

privileged swag having feebs, destined hatred

A vegetarian since the invasion
She’d never seen the word BOMBS
She’d never seen the word BOMBS blown up
To 96 point Futura
She’d never seen an AK
In a yellowy Day Glo display
A t-shirt so lovely it turned all the history books grey

This bit totally ruined 'Holiday' for me.

why? M.I.A. coulda written it!

^^^ I immediately thought this too.

there is basically no way that anyone w/decent aesthetic standards should be able to get past THOSE LYRICS and THAT VOICE

h8 when people talk abt fontz

I knew this would turn clusterfucky.

random ppl: "hey maybe music writers have a few biases"
defensive bros: "no we dont, why am i not allowed to not listen to what i dont want to listen to, get out of my head"
thelex: "u are the devil"

the other thing abt this band is how their two most quoted couplets have to do w/obscure drinks and garments and its supposed to represent their whole much discussed class signifiers thing - but isnt that just knowing what things are called

yeah the thing with them is that there's nothing to them EXCEPT knowing what things are called, which as you say isn't even a big deal, so...there's nothing to care about. at least corral your class signifiers into some sort of narrative or emotional situation that actually makes me give a shit, you know? also, slit your throat so you can never sing again, singer dude

there is basically no way that anyone w/decent aesthetic standards should be able to get past THOSE LYRICS and THAT VOICE

der kommissar's in town UH UH.

I kinda dig those lyrics btw -- tho some of that definitely has to do with the delivery.

I've consistently taken some of lex's wilder rantings with a grain of salt, but I think I can now safely cross him off the list of critics worth spending time on.

Who knew in 2010 I'd be stan-ning for the hot indie album??

I mean maybe try and at least form some sort of coherent argument beyond "fuck this shit is awful and you are a person with no taste for liking this".

Thx to magic sci-fi Zing app I'm at vampire weekend show right now

Although there *have* been some penetrating insights from a few posters, I can't help thinking I've exacerbated precisely what I was complaining about, way beyond the level it had been at previously

...ach, it's only Vampire Weekend. We'll live.

I've consistently taken some of lex's wilder rantings with a grain of salt, but I think I can now safely cross him off the list of critics worth spending time on.

Wise move (and no, I am not remotely a Vampire Weekend fan).

I mean maybe try and at least form some sort of coherent argument beyond "fuck this shit is awful and you are a person with no taste for liking this".

Although, this just confirms for me how quickly these discussions can come down irreducible matters of taste. One person thinks the Vampire Weekend guy's voice sucks, another thinks Rihanna's voice sucks, and another thinks both their voices suck.

This is true and I shouldn't be surprised by this, but I always hope for better out of ILM - this is why I love reading the board and why I step back form in-depth discussions (because I rarely feel I can add value). I would rather read lex say "this sucks and I hate his awful voice" than read that I'm less of a person for not agreeing with his taste.

ANYWAY.

scott pgw heard Simon's "Crazy Love Pt. II" in "White Sky." I hear The Rhythm of the Saints' "Proof."

I would rather read lex say "this sucks and I hate his awful voice" than read that I'm less of a person for not agreeing with his taste.

According to some of his comments on another thread, you also hate life if (forced to make the choice) you'd rather listen to music that's already been made than music that hasn't yet been made.

would def rather hear intemperate opinions than people bitching abt them

People who would rather hear intemperate opinions than people bitching about them are the lowest of the low.

Oh ffs, I was just calling lex on some bullshit.

people who would rather hear intemperate opinions than people bitching about them have incredible swag

yeah the thing with them is that there's nothing to them EXCEPT knowing what things are called, which as you say isn't even a big deal, so...there's nothing to care about. at least corral your class signifiers into some sort of narrative or emotional situation that actually makes me give a shit, you know?

This is distortive obv. It's like saying that because people quote Ciara comparing her body to a hamburger clearly all she can write about is sex and popular consumerism.

Trying to "corral (their) class signifiers into some sort of narrative or emotional situation that actually makes (people) give a shit" is a bit of a hallmark of this album actually.

Although (in line with Deej's comments above) I get the impression that this is one aim about which they're not particularly bothered as to whether they're successful or not. Making you feel their pain is def. not VW's Number 1 goal.

One of their charms is that they don't "feel" pain. Like I said upthread, they're so observant and young that if they've got any staying power at all there's still time for them to show the consequences of their ambivalent relationship with their class. I kinda hope they DON'T though -- we need more American bands with the sensibilities of Isherwood and Vidal; I prefer VW as brittle commentators.

elsewhere i've negatively compared them to artists like fiona apple and nellie mckay, who have just as many privileged signifiers in their lyrics and are as self-consciously clever, but the thing is in both cases there is no "ambivalent relationship with their class" because they're just a lot more interesting (not to say a gazillion times more skilled as performers - honestly VW are just WEAK at delivering whatever it is they're aiming for)

'but the thing is in both cases there is no "ambivalent relationship with their class" because they're just a lot more interesting'

don't see how this follows?

Why is having no ambivalent relationship to your class better than having one?

no "ambivalent relationship with their class" because they're just a lot more interesting

What is the relationship between being an interesting performer and having "no ambivalent relationship with the performer's class"?

Lex yr argument seems to be to justify a particular observation with a general assertion: "fiona apple's relationship with class is not ambivalent b/c she's interesting".

This is not a persuasive argument, it's like saying "this chocolate is not very rich-tasting because it is good."

To convince people you've got to swap the order around.

Xpost obv.

i meant that that's not all they had - i don't feel there's much more to vampire weekend (and judging from how much of the conversation is about their class (cf how this wasn't the case for fiona apple), others feel the same way), and i don't find it that interesting

and as has already been pointed out, VW don't express their relationship with their class in any deeper terms than "knowing what things are called"

I'm not really a fan of Vampire Weekend, but I think the fans are just as -- or more -- connected to the band's blend of Afropop and indie rock than they are in how the band comments on their economic and social class in their lyrics/vibe.

Fiona Apple doesn't count because she is female obv - 90% of music criticism that "plays the man" rather than the music so to speak boils down to:

1) Am I like these people

2) Would I be friends with these people

3) Would I date / marry / sexually exploit these people.

Ad hominem Fiona Apple crit usually fell into category 3 so class categories recede into the background.

Although that's not the case with Lily Allen and M.I.A. partly b/c class is so much more central to UK crit (plus M.I.A. has race/culture angles which are important to US crit) - this hyper-focus on class/race issues in the music crit doesn't undermine their worth as performers I don't think.

and as has already been pointed out, VW don't express their relationship with their class in any deeper terms than "knowing what things are called"

Honestly Lex how would you listen to them enough to know???

And really the whole class issue is as much as red herring as "M.I.A.'s relationship with the revolutionary third world proletariat" is.

actually i find all this interesting because i'm basically with lex but it interests me that people with "tastes" that are in other ways often convergent with mine can at all tolerate vampire weekend, much less venerate them. it makes me curious about where the precise demarcations are -- what are the specific things that make me recoil, or that draw other people in, etc. his voice and lyrics are definitely part of it, but i think they may also be a little misleading -- i think it may have more to do with the rhythm and the grooves. i'm basically a big globo-pop guy, i love m.i.a. and manu chao and amadou & mariam -- sometimes diplo! -- and even other american apers like antibalas and nomo. so theoretically i should by sympathetic to v.w.'s whole shtick AND YET ... i find them hugely offputting. it's not just the preciousness (i heart stuart murdoch, so...), and it's not the presumption. i think ivy league white boys can and should try their hand at whatever they feel like, as much as anyone else. it's just the execution. there's something so facile about the whole project, so thimble-deep not just in their ideas but in their relationship to their own music, that it mostly sounds to me like small rocks skipping across a small stream. and not skipping far, either -- the disappointing kind of throws where no matter how you angle it, you get two jumps and a plop. i don't see a way into this music for myself. i don't hear or feel anything to make me stick around. but the fact that other people do, i mean, i allow the possibility that it's simply not on my wavelength. but boy is it not.

I do sympathize with that opinion, which was basically my response to the first album.

there's something so facile about the whole project, so thimble-deep not just in their ideas but in their relationship to their own music, that it mostly sounds to me like small rocks skipping across a small stream. and not skipping far, either -- the disappointing kind of throws where no matter how you angle it, you get two jumps and a plop.

YES. so well put.

Honestly Lex how would you listen to them enough to know???

if you remember the ilx poll thread from last year i spent a good portion of it in disbelieving tears of laughter as i looked up more and more of their lyrics

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, Thursday, October 8, 2009 10:21 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

imo vampire weekend have pretty good songs - but really who wants to talk abt that

If I can stomach Coloma lyrics I can certainly stomach Vampire Weekend lyrics.

By contrast "stars are blind" was a lyrical masterwork, I guess.

I think it's always a mistake to discuss lyrics in isolation in any genre of music (unless it's like offensive pro-nazi stuff etc.) - I could never be a Tori Amos fan if I thought "I wonder how this reads in isolation" every time I listened to her, compared to that Vampire Weekend look like a model of lyrical respectability.

I mean even when people are posting long stretches of gucci freestyles it's not like the idea is to judge them with no regard to the actual performance.

Cue Lex saying "but I hate dude's voice too" - sure, but now we're talking about how all of your own general tastes intersect to make this band dislikeable to you, not why they are objectively hellspawn.

I could never be a Tori Amos fan if I thought "I wonder how this reads in isolation" every time I listened to her

call me when v.w. write their "me and a gun." (i.e. i get what you're saying but let's not go overboard.)

like 99% of lyrics look dumb printed