Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

I don't really understand the critique that goes: "What they are doing is morally reprehensible AND they don't sound good." Like, you need to stick with one or the other. No one debates the aesthetic value of Prussian Blue, and generally there isn't a ton written about the politics of shitty unknown, untalented bands. When you put the two together it sounds a lot like, "The food sucks and there isn't enough of it."

err i was under the impression, based on my limited experience, that ivy league schools were populated by the children of the people who run the world, and that nearly all other schools... weren't. that's a pretty big difference. if you want to do the "relative to Africa" thing then the former are the dictatorship families with the mansions and the swiss accounts, and the latter are $40 salary people.

uh yeah that's not really true

i mean i applied to an ivy. i'm from a pretty regular background. there are tons of us. some of us even get in.

and btw the school i did go to had a 60% acceptance rate and was loaded with really really wealthy kids with powerful families

mr. que don't you like spoon

less scholastic rich kids gotta go somewhere!

goole, cher was 17 when "i got you, babe" was a hit...only formal post-secondary education was from the University of Street Knowledge, Los Angeles campus

man, i can't believe a working girl got ripped off like that. i mean, salif keita is royalty for pete's sake!!

from the nyt today:

It’s easy to see why ILM would be drawn to the anti-Vampire Weekend pose. First, it makes everything so simple. The economic crisis was caused by a complex web of factors, including global imbalances caused by the rise of China. But with the anti-Vampire Weekend narrative, you can just blame Vampire Weekend.

Second, it absolves P&J voters of responsibility for their problems. Over the past few years, many Pitchfork writers behaved like idiots, but so did average P&J voters, racking up unprecedented votes for Kanye. With the anti-Vampire Weekend narrative, you can accuse the former and absolve the latter.

Third, Vampire Weekend is popular with the ruling class. Ever since I started covering music, the ILM-ruling class has been driven by one fantasy: that voters will get so furious at Vampire Weekend that they will hand power to Gucci Mane.

So it’s easy to see the seductiveness of being anti-Vampire Weekend. Nonetheless, it nearly always fails. The history of popism, going back to William Jennings Bryan, is generally a history of defeat.

That’s because P&J voters aren’t as stupid as the popists imagine. Voters are capable of holding two ideas in their heads at one time: First, that Vampire Weekend do rig the game in their own favor; and second, that simply bashing Vampire Weekend will still not solve the country’s problems.

i believe bashing vampire weekend can and will be instrumental in bringing about a comprehensive socialized single-payer health care system to all americans.

ok guys i know this band has fancy pants international influences in their music, but what kind of crazy fake accent is the guy singing in? dude pronounces "cousin" like Balki Bartokomous.

where can I buy a pair of those fancy pants?

I can see that you pulled the trigger on your quip gun, but I think you'll find that the chamber was empty.

The Original Mr. Fancy-Pants

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5f/Guybrush_Threepwood.png/240px-Guybrush_Threepwood.png

just for the record, heres the full article hopper was drawing those quotes from:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jan/07/vampire-weekend-contra

Koenig, however, is generous in understanding how the band have come to be perceived in the way they have. "Because we favour certain ways of dressing and don't shy away from using obscure words and we went to Columbia University, people have put all the elements together and prejudged us as privileged white kids, even using the word 'Wasp', which immediately implies privilege," he says. "Those things, juxtaposed with our interest in world music, have made it very easy for people to raise the flag of colonialism or imperialism. But the two main writers in the band are Jewish and Persian, which is a pretty broad definition of 'whiteness'. We're certainly not all fresh off the Mayflower."

goole, cher was 17 when "i got you, babe" was a hit...only formal post-secondary education was from the University of Street Knowledge, Los Angeles campus

Wiki sez she was dyslexic.

I thought she was American.

half-breed gypsy-american

give me your gypsies, your tramps, your poor huddled theives

do people have the same reservations about yeasayer or it's 'okay' because they sing songs about believing in yourself and being sad about the modern world? or are we just used to it cuz they have scraggly beards and wear dirty wife beaters?

I guess it's some kind of achievement that in 2010 we're still having arguments about what bands "deserve" success, and the importance of Paying Dues.

― Blue Fucks Like Ben Nelson (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, January 28, 2010 12:47 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

btw this post was from whiney g weingarten -- take w grain of salt

Oh I know. I'm just puttin' it out there.

This boring stuff about colonialism again? These guys have been bringing up the subject (only to coyly deny it) since the first record. Same w/ the WASP thing. The whole Vampire concept is too effete and contrived, just don`t overexplain yourself and focus on the music, which is pretty enough but a little too precious.

and the thing about VW is like, there is obv a compelling interest in them moving up the ladder or whatever. they just went #1 in the US. they shouldn't have been playing the cake shop or whatever the fuck because more people care about them. i could see the argument in retrospect with blog/p4k pushed bands like CYHSY or tapes n tapes that flamed out, but it's a stupid thing to say about vampire weekend.

i thought there were black people in yeasayer, but maybe that's just the expanded live band.

btw the one time i saw yeasayer it was perfect...i was back behind the drums & only getting the live sound + monitor mix, so it was all rhythm section and no frontline.

goole, cher was 17 when "i got you, babe" was a hit...only formal post-secondary education was from the University of Street Knowledge, Los Angeles campus

Wiki sez she was dyslexic.

― Hoisin Murphy (jaymc), Thursday, January 28, 2010 11:10 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cher actually invented autotune software for believe because she wanted the listener to "feel" what being dyslexic is like, she felt that sound sort of communicated the "fluttery", transient aspect that words take on to someone who is dyslexic

haven't really been reading this thread, but I'm glad this is the turn it has taken.

Not enough Cher threads imo.

what do you guys think it means that cher has armenian heritage?

unruly bush

Man, Scott nails so much of what's problematic about this article. The two main things I'd underline:

1. It's another piece of writing trying to skewer the band based on the issues that all their songs are already about, which is odd -- it's as if we're all so critically accustomed to running this class/race/privilege analysis on bands that we don't know how to respond when a band is talking about that stuff from the get-go

2. It does something SUPER shitty and mean and intellectually dishonest, which is that she calls them a "white" band, but then -- referring to a quote where Koenig explains that they're not actually WASPs and one of them is Persian -- she dismissively says he "bandies around" their ethnicity, and then she makes a judgment call that, you know, being Persian isn't enough? For something or other? In other words, a plain statement of this guy's ethnicity can only function to her as part of some game of oneupsmanship about who's too "white" or adequately non-"white," so she decides to characterize a statement of someone's ethnicity as some form of bragging or defensiveness that she's going to debunk. Completely apart from what you think of VW, this is just incredibly lazy, shitty, and mean, and it's extremely galling to me coming from a critic who is (so far as I can tell) white.

Normally I love Hopper's energy and distinct point of view, but sometimes the point of view gets so strong that it starts being a dick about reality.

yeah i agree but i thinks she gets at something w/ the unrepentant rich girl bashing. i mean if you're gonna write songs about this whole set then it seems weak to get all judgmental about em.

Do you think "unrepentant rich girl bashing" is really what's going on in these songs?

well maybe just the whole "never seen the words bombs" bit from holiday and some parts of ur a contra

scottpl is otm in this thread; people are mad at VW for turning the mirror onto them

p.s. guys that guy from the dirty projectors went to yale so it's not okay to like them either

I'm nominating the next Vampire Weekend album as a contender for a ILX group "let's release the album before the real band does" project like No Line On The Horizon.

the best part of the jessica hopper review is when she actually talks about the music. she's got the drummer dead to rights, and the camper van beethoven zing is close enough. i wish more of the review, and this thread, and discussions of the band in general, said more about the music than all this other who-cares piffle. the obsession with their "privilege" from either attackers or defenders is pretty drab and dull and has almost nothing to do with why they have (had?) the #1 record. for better or worse, people like their tunes and their beats. (just checked billboard btw, their run at the top is done.)

(also, apparently spoon has a #4 record. huh.)

i gotta say, i think people who are all OH WELL THEIR DRUMMER REALLY SUCKS are just fishing for reasons to dislike this band, and it's a pretty weak one

huge gap between being shitty and being competent imo. on this record, the drumming is competent, and it works.

Yeah, there are not-excellent drummers throughout rock music, and it's been that way for decades. Shitty drummers are a rarer breed, maybe not on the live circuit, but definitely where records are concerned. Hell, even Meg White made The White Stripes more charming than they would've been otherwise.

i gotta say, i think people who are all OH WELL THEIR DRUMMER REALLY SUCKS are just fishing for reasons to dislike this band, and it's a pretty weak one

i dunno, compare these guys to the attractions, police, heads, etc and a clumsy, grooveless rhythm section seems reason enough to find them wanting.

a clumsy rhythm section is a completely valid reason to find any band wanting, imo. unless, right, the clumsiness is part of the charm, which it can be. and i don't think vw's rhythm section is awful, it's just not really up to what it's trying to do. (as opposed to, say, chris frantz and tina weymouth, neither of them virtuosos but a completely solid groove unit.) it's just, like i've said elsewhere in this thread, there's a tendency of vw fans to think people who don't like them are all hung up on their sweaters and syllables, when for some of us at least there are a lot more basic musical reasons to not be a fan.

i'm not even swearing i'd get off on the guy slapping class signifiers to "day-o" if the back-up was in the pocket, but it might at least make for better new wave

ive never really come to rock music to hear deft drumming

except for like the police/who/zep

i think i listed the group's in a similar vein that could keep a steady beat but if you like i could do it again

yes 'could keep a steady beat' is basic function & doesnt really appeal to me in & of itself. i mean if u want to be wowed by drums why not listen to jazz?

rhythmically speaking, rock is pretty low on the totem poll of innovative arts