Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

i dont think iv ever knowingly heard dave matthews band except that like every single room raiders contestant ever had their cds

Under the Table and Dreaming clearly.

dont really know what dmb sounds like tbh

why r they so bad n h8d

i feel like glamour as it codes in R&B and rap and glamour as it codes in Ivy League VW type circles function very differently.

^^^ Tom's of Maine all up in Ezra's grill.

"I Did It," bro.

wtf does that mean?

The "this sounds like that and no-one likes that so clearly this is also aesthetically bankrupt" argument has limited facility I think.

I see the argument that VW sound a bit like Dave Matthews Band but that doesn't mean that you can't like one and not like the other. If VW annoy listeners I doubt it's in much the same way as "What Would You Say" does, for example. No one resemblance has a monopoly on an artist's effect or effectiveness.

this is maybe OT im really interested why some of you are calling out "horchata" and "balaklava" as two of the big ruling-class signifiers here--is it just that theyre big/foreign words?

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.

would like to re-quote this as being totally OTM for me and how I get this album. as someone who tunes out the lyrics to almost everything I listen to there's something self-consciously 'small' about their arrangements, or glib as tipsymothra said. I don't even know what a horchata is and I went to an ivy league school. I suppose this should be pushing certain buttons for me but it's not. oh well back to the new pantha du prince or whatever

this is maybe OT im really interested why some of you are calling out "horchata" and "balaklava" as two of the big ruling-class signifiers here--is it just that theyre big/foreign words?

― max, Monday, January 18, 2010 8:22 PM (9 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my question from like 1m posts ago^ plz answer

I didn't know what "cognoscenti" meant when I first heard Bryan Ferry use it in a song, and I went to private school for eighteen years. Oh well.

i always think what is so funny on these threads is where ppl who don't like whatever album decide its not "all that" and wish they could "open our eyes" to its shittiness or in this case "DMB-ness"

this is maybe OT im really interested why some of you are calling out "horchata" and "balaklava" as two of the big ruling-class signifiers here--is it just that theyre big/foreign words?

― max, Monday, January 18, 2010 8:22 PM (9 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my question from like 1m posts ago^ plz answer

― supra-max (ice cr?m), Monday, January 18, 2010 8:24 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

for realz though everyone is talking like weve all agreed that these guys are tossing off WASP signifiers left and right--but im listening to the lyrics now and mostly it seems like theyre tossing off... big words

this is maybe OT im really interested why some of you are calling out "horchata" and "balaklava" as two of the big ruling-class signifiers here--is it just that theyre big/foreign words?

― max, Monday, January 18, 2010 7:22 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i've been singling those two out because the song was the first one released for this album and also because it's such a ridiculous rhyme that it seems to me to be specifically designed to inflame people who criticized them circa their first album -- it's more along the lines of the lil jon lyric than anything involving class

mostly it just seems like they're tossing off

a mexican drink & a face mask, a milky drink & a scarf

mostly it just seems like they're tossing off

― Na'vi Girls (Need Love Too) (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, January 18, 2010 7:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest

^yes

Brian Eno's from Suffolk, and as far as I know no one's complained that he rhymed "logistics" with "mystics" -- and used "heuristics" in the same line. Words are cool.

for realz though everyone is talking like weve all agreed that these guys are tossing off WASP signifiers left and right--but im listening to the lyrics now and mostly it seems like theyre tossing off... big words

― max, Tuesday, January 19, 2010 1:28 AM (41 seconds ago)

benneton/"sell your paintings at the united nations"/louis vuitton/"hyannisport is a ghetto"/"you spilt keffir on your keffiyeh"

ok but the last one no

Indictment on the world that "keffiyeh" might be thought of as a WASP signifier.

its more the combo tho

cf ethno tourism

benneton/"sell your paintings at the united nations"/louis vuitton/"hyannisport is a ghetto"/"you spilt keffir on your keffiyeh"

― plaxico (I know, right?), Monday, January 18, 2010 8:33 PM (54 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

those are all from the last album!

and if were being pedantic only benneton and hyannisport are WASP signifiers. and only those two + louis vuitton are privilege signifiers.

in december studying logistics
i look psychotic googling 'heuristics'

loool

I am a little surprised to see how much certain people here are making of this. Amiable guys+hooks, (if you buy it anyway), ok. I understand the semi-moral arguments about privilege&style in terms of how ppl relate to them, that's all good, but I'm not sure about the idea they're some incredibly welcome breath of fresh air.

The extent to which their cultural and self-awareness is getting championed makes me wonder what ideas you guys have about less swagsome indie or whatever's made by ppl in the VW demographic. I enjoy some of their hooks and namedropping, but not for what it ISN'T, yknow? Picking up deej's points cos they were specific&he's been sound elsewhere:

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

Which is partly about the discourse and fans and partly about the music, ok, and:

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... displays a lack of awareness of how that music functions in its original context

Really? I don't really know what I think of this. dj/rupture is consciously straddling genres&it makes sense in that context but he's unusual. Generally those dynamics&lack of awareness is something fans&critics are guilty of so it seems like a weird thing to pick up about a band.

like at the time there was a lot of handwringing abt how ppl in the west wearing keffiyehs had gone from "political empathy with palestine" to "you can get them in neon pink now"

ethno tourism maybe.

i dont really have a dog in this fight anyway, i am just interested in the way all the midwestern/southern/irish/british/australian ppl on this thread are reading WASP into the band. my take is that if you replace "rich" or "WASPy" or "privileged" with "precious" or "precocious" itd be a little more... accurate.

benneton/"sell your paintings at the united nations"/louis vuitton/"hyannisport is a ghetto"/"you spilt keffir on your keffiyeh"

― plaxico (I know, right?), Monday, January 18, 2010 8:33 PM (54 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

those are all from the last album!

and if were being pedantic only benneton and hyannisport are WASP signifiers. and only those two + louis vuitton are privilege signifiers.

― max, Tuesday, January 19, 2010 1:36 AM (1 minute ago)

jeez i am sorry not every second word is bryn mawr or DAR

ha well! if were going to talk about my people lets at least get the signifiers right

also i havent really gotten to the point on the new album where i know lyrics

In the context of the song, balaclava = ski vacation, horchata = beach vacation, right? so both arguably "preppy" or whatever.

do they wear Topsiders without socks?

every person in new york fyi

what is the most VW-like DMB album?

i have no idea, you'd have to ask a dave matthews fan. but just randomly picking one of his most recent singles ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew8hmVIGKcM

...

i mean, they don't sound exactly alike or anything, but this whole world-groove-lite thing that vw do, dmb and a lot of other bonnaroovian groove types have been doing for years. (and yes those bands all listened to talking heads and graceland too.) it's possible that what's being exposed is not lex's ignorance of indie, but indie fans' ignorance of world-groove hippie shit. maybe we're on the cusp of a great realignment...

was that dmb or vpw

Vampire Weekend Will Debut At One In The USA

by Paul Cashmere - January 17 2010

The new Vampire Weekend album `Contra` will be the number one album in America by the end of the week.

Hits Daily Double is reporting that the ‘Contra’ album is on its way to registering upwards of 120,000 sales over the week, based on first day sales.

This means Ke$ha’s number one with ‘Animal’ will be short-lived after debuting this week and knocking Susan Boyle from the top of the chart.

thread filled with lots of discussion about class signifiers = music lacks serious jams IMO

― Na'vi Girls (Need Love Too) (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, January 18, 2010 5:08 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest

lol i had this thought while out this afternoon--is it a valid criticism of vw that we seem to be having the exact same dumb conversation about the second album that we did about the first one (and the we here is not ilx but music crit at large imo)? i'm inclined not to blame the band just because people do indeed like getting trolled.

otherwise jordan s. pretty much on fire in here.

Yeah, but lex isn't trolling!

First album got a ton of airplay on Modern Rock radio.

I'm not sure why "we talk about race/class issues = the band is musically weak" would have any more purchase here than it would with respect to M.I.A.

those bands all listened to talking heads and graceland too.)

Peter Gabriel too.

maybe we're on the cusp of a great realignment...

i mean, hello, animal collective fans are half former phish fans. and a beardo disco bro is just slight more self-aware and record-obsessed jam band fan.

yeah the animal collective hippie-groove crossover was obvious a long time before it happened. will not be at all surprised for v.w. to follow suit.

THE NEXT GRATEFUL DEAD

my take is that this is the hegelian synthesis of the two biggest groups of rock fans of the last ten years.

all these little brothers whose older sibs were listening to either indie rock or jam bands are growing up and refusing 2 choose

which is fine! but people getting all "it's so indie" about vampire weekend are just leaving out the part of the equation that embarrasses them (or should).

dmb still sucks tho