Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

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

objectively, they have a number one album in the us and england

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

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Sunday, January 17, 2010 9:02 PM (38 minutes ago)

dude you're better than this, come on. you can't judge lyrics just by looking at them on paper; besides, i basically see a lot of the lyrics you'd object to as pretty obvious hater-trolling.

as usual ppl just be overthinking shit like crazy, theyre a talented band who write good, hooky songs

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.)

yeah but if VW wrote lyrics like "tuna, rubber, a little blubber in my igloo... timmy and that purple monkey are all down at Bobby's house making themselves pesters and jesters and lesters and my traitors of kind", Lex would point and laugh and say "see this proves they are objectively awful."

i.e. the Boney Joan rule applies in favour of Vampire Weekend as much as it does any other music.

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

as usual ppl just be overthinking shit like crazy, theyre a talented band who write good, hooky songs

solid voice-of-reason shit that will get totally drowned out.

its true i hate thinking about things

objectively, they have a number one album in the us and england

Number 3 in the UK. So unless Florence & The Machine's sales were heavily Wales-biased or something, no.

Aren't Vampire Weekend basically middle class kids who happened to go to an Ivy League university are camping up the upper class signifiers? Actually don't answer that because I don't really care.

I'm actually pretty good at tuning out awful lyrics in most cases - the Lex conversely is more focussed on lyrics and being able to identify or emphathise with lyricists than pretty much any other listener I know (cf his inability to really connect with any pop music not sung in English).

Vampire Weekend aren't really interested in pushing any of the buttons lyrically and possibly even musically that the Lex values so I'm not surprised he's going all "WTF this is worthless!" because he literally cannot see what other buttons they may be pushing.

i think that strikes me as LESS offensive about these guys is that they recognize that what makes indie 'indie' & worthwhile is entirely ABOUT signifying & certain affects & style. They dont pretend that indie has some sort of access to the avant garde that other genres dont, they dont pretend to be more 'progressive' or that they're a part of any real zeitgeist other than their own style, in fact theres LESS of a sense of 'power dynamics' at play w/ there music than I get from the praise for like MIA or dubstep or even animal collective (fwiw i dug 'my girls' ok but have never really been 'into' them for superficial STYLE reasons -- i think the name 'animal collective' displays a negative amount of SWAG)(im kind of joking & kind of serious but mostly i just spend a lot more time listening to /writing about / thinking about music that im really really into like bay area rap & gucci mane & grown folxx R&B & cheesy dance music/funky house & old music).

anyway my point is kind of that despite them getting a bunch of shit for the PRIVILEGE they display by saying font names or whatever, i feel like their music is actually way more aware of the issue of PRIVILEGE than music that purports to be all interconnected global music of the future but really feels like a condescending bite of 'lesser' populist musics

or not even a bite, but simply displays a lack of awareness of how that music functions in its original context

i.e. dj/rupture who i heard was djing recently & brought some friends out & the girls dug it at first but then theyre like "actually this is kind of boring" & then we left

i know ppl might not agree w/ me about that particular example but i think you get my point

that i know chicks B-)

I found DJ Rupture really grim when I saw him play (admittedly 5 years ago) - world party music without the party.

see this proves they are objectively awful

how does one "prove" that anything is objectively awful! criticising me for failing to "prove" that is kinda weak

the reason i'm in here at all is more b/c pretty much every otherwise like-minded ilx poster seems to be ok with them - even tom ewing likes them ffs - i'm pretty sure i'm not the one mishearing them so the problem therefore is you all

Not criticising you for that Lex. I'm saying that's the position you imply when you say things like:

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

I mean, really, you're one of my favourite dudes but "decent aesthetic standards" is risible Alex in NYC speak and I hate seeing people write stuff like that on ILM.

no one ever, ever justifies their appreciation of horrible yelping indie voices

Lex I think the issue is that you cannot and will not get close enough to the music to properly articulate why it is bad - there are loads of reasons to hate Vampire Weekend and some of them are very good ones but you're not anywhere near them.

Not that anyone has to - I don't want to have to spend hours listening to Belle & Sebastian or Los Campesinos or Mariah Carey or similar tweeness in order to qualify for zinging them on an ILM thread, but it's probably best to go "hah this is shit" and leave it at that rather than get sucked into a lengthy argument you can't possibly win about how everyone else is wrong for listening to them.

Also the voice is a bit of a red herring given that Vampire Weekend dude can actually sing in tune.

ie you know how annoyed you get when people like that dude on Poptimists start talking about "horrible shouty garage vocals"? This is a bit like that.

Double X-post - Because it's like demanding justification for appreciation for the colour brown.

Alex in NYC would say the same thing about horrible R&B melisma - and nothing you could say would constitute a justification because every analogy or simile would simply confirm the horribleness for him.

It's like you're drawing a huge circle around all these stylistic affects and saying the Boney Joan rule doesn't apply there.

the point im trying to make here lex, is that these guys are kind of a poor target for yr bile -- theyre not particularly risible w/r/t the entire anti rockism project, & in fact there are lots of artists who do a lot more 'engaging with' music we both like that do feel like they're buying into an artificial hierarchical view of music that reinforces indie as some kind of superior taste alignment instead of a simple bunch of cultural codes & stylistic approaches

like, these guys should be the ultimate "not my cup of tea"-lex music, not the ultimate "i h8 them with every fiber of my being"-lex music

Getting back to the record I think the "she's never seen the world bombs" verse would totally fit in on an MIA record and it would require one hell of a beat for me to get past it even in that context.

thread reminds me of:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/jan/26/popandrock5

Alex in NYC would say the same thing about horrible R&B melisma - and nothing you could say would constitute a justification because every analogy or simile would simply confirm the horribleness for him.

Fair enough.

]I mean, really, you're one of my favourite dudes but "decent aesthetic standards" is risible Alex in NYC speak and I hate seeing people write stuff like that on ILM.

Maybe you should stop taking it all so seriously.

Ha it's like Beatlejuice.

Uh, I haven't read this thread (and probably won't have time to), but I did write (not especially coherently or definitively, maybe) about this record. Think it's not nearly as good as the debut (which I kind of liked). So fwiw:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2010/01/vampire.html