haven't really been reading this thread, but I'm glad this is the turn it has taken.
― tylerw, Thursday, 28 January 2010 23:58 (fourteen years ago) link
Not enough Cher threads imo.
― Blue Fucks Like Ben Nelson (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 28 January 2010 23:58 (fourteen years ago) link
what do you guys think it means that cher has armenian heritage?
― tylerw, Friday, 29 January 2010 00:01 (fourteen years ago) link
unruly bush
― Dr. Goon Medicine Woman (M@tt He1ges0n), Friday, 29 January 2010 00:07 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Friday, 29 January 2010 00:28 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Moreno, Friday, 29 January 2010 01:41 (fourteen years ago) link
Do you think "unrepentant rich girl bashing" is really what's going on in these songs?
― Mark, Friday, 29 January 2010 01:45 (fourteen years ago) link
well maybe just the whole "never seen the words bombs" bit from holiday and some parts of ur a contra
― Moreno, Friday, 29 January 2010 02:01 (fourteen years ago) link
scottpl is otm in this thread; people are mad at VW for turning the mirror onto them
― you want it to be some dude, but it's the other dude (dyao), Friday, 29 January 2010 04:50 (fourteen years ago) link
p.s. guys that guy from the dirty projectors went to yale so it's not okay to like them either
― you want it to be some dude, but it's the other dude (dyao), Friday, 29 January 2010 04:54 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 29 January 2010 05:01 (fourteen years ago) link
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.)
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, 29 January 2010 05:01 (fourteen years ago) link
(also, apparently spoon has a #4 record. huh.)
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, 29 January 2010 05:03 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― Goon's Anatomy (J0rdan S.), Friday, 29 January 2010 05:17 (fourteen years ago) link
huge gap between being shitty and being competent imo. on this record, the drumming is competent, and it works.
― kshighway (ksh), Friday, 29 January 2010 05:22 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Johnny Fever, Friday, 29 January 2010 05:29 (fourteen years ago) link
i dunno, compare these guys to the attractions, police, heads, etc and a clumsy, grooveless rhythm section seems reason enough to find them wanting.
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 05:36 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, 29 January 2010 05:41 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 05:44 (fourteen years ago) link
ive never really come to rock music to hear deft drumming
except for like the police/who/zep
― average gangsta rap from average gangstas (deej), Friday, 29 January 2010 07:18 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 07:40 (fourteen years ago) link
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?
― average gangsta rap from average gangstas (deej), Friday, 29 January 2010 07:44 (fourteen years ago) link
rhythmically speaking, rock is pretty low on the totem poll of innovative arts
lol at "man for afro-carribean-influenced new wave these guys sure are clumsy" getting a "WADDYA WANT NEIL PEART?"
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 07:45 (fourteen years ago) link
the continual oversell of 'afro-carribean influenced' is totally the problem here
― average gangsta rap from average gangstas (deej), Friday, 29 January 2010 07:46 (fourteen years ago) link
i thought it was our demand for complex drum technique
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 07:47 (fourteen years ago) link
would you prefer "new wave with an afro-carribean lilt"?
i could just say "clumsy costello" or "shitty police," if we want to reinstall the middlemen
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 07:50 (fourteen years ago) link
dudes, the drumming is perfectly fine on this record.
― samosa gibreel, Friday, 29 January 2010 08:30 (fourteen years ago) link
on both of them, really
― tza nicholas ii (The Reverend), Friday, 29 January 2010 09:12 (fourteen years ago) link
Some of these tracks sound like Paul Simon.
One does sound like the Arctics, actually.
― Mark G, Friday, 29 January 2010 09:32 (fourteen years ago) link
Peter Gabriel, too.
― tza nicholas ii (The Reverend), Friday, 29 January 2010 09:40 (fourteen years ago) link
(sorry, I just wanted to say that)
"rhythmically speaking, rock is pretty low on the totem poll of innovative arts"
unless 'rock' includes mathrock, metalcore, prog, zeuhl, etc.
― m the g, Friday, 29 January 2010 11:36 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh, I thought that was a VW lyric!
― Mark G, Friday, 29 January 2010 11:42 (fourteen years ago) link
I said in my own review that the drumming doesn't matter so much with this band: they care more about shaping an electro/acoustic sound, in which live percussion may or may not play a part.
― Blue Fucks Like Ben Nelson (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2010 11:59 (fourteen years ago) link
I read something which implied "White Sky" was the only track using a drum machine on the new album, which surprised me. The rhythms sound fine to me. They're an attraction, even.
― Tim F, Friday, 29 January 2010 12:49 (fourteen years ago) link
funny thing is, while i think there's a rushed, swing-reducing, slapdash quality to the grooves compared to 80s new wave acts like police/heads/beat/etc (tipsy's "my problem with the hooks and grooves and appropriations is mostly that (like the vocals and lyrics) they just seem awfully glib" resonates), one that effects even my favorite tracks - the drummer seems totally off when he comes in at the end of "oxford comma," I don't hate this band. One of the most popular (both here and commercially) sophisto-pop bands not too long ago was Fall Out Boy, and I think you can make a much better case for these guys actually having some wit. But the irony of the "there's no reason to find these guys' cultural approprations offensive" argument is that, by the same tack, you could ask why we're supposed to find it so interesting. And if you don't thrill to it, you're left with a sloppy, slightly updated take on Sting Costello shit.
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 13:06 (fourteen years ago) link
^^^^ This is circular and unpersuasive.
The people who like VW aren't saying that the band's "cultural appropriations" are the only reason to like the band.
You're implying that the choice is between VW being borderline-offensive and VW being bland.
But lots of music is neither borderline-offensive nor bad.
― Tim F, Friday, 29 January 2010 13:22 (fourteen years ago) link
I dunno that I'm really offering a choice - I'm saying that when you take out the part of VW that risks offense (an act I really don't think is a bad thing in bands) you've got slapdash new wave
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 13:40 (fourteen years ago) link
and slapdash new wave ain't that bad! i think its the just the drudge siren hype around these guys that forces everybody to take sides
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 13:45 (fourteen years ago) link
VW hit the sour spot of making music that is both
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, 29 January 2010 13:47 (fourteen years ago) link
i mean the borderline offensive stuff is a red herring, i guess: with more substantial sounds or better hooks or better singing or just, you know, better everything, it wouldn't matter a jot; but since they provide nothing worthwhile elsewhere it magnifies the annoying cultural appropriation stuff
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, 29 January 2010 13:48 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm dissatisfied using adjectives like "slapdash" to describe weekend's sound. They obviously put a lot of care and thought into arrangements, esp on the new album, but the performances just feel hurried and off in a way that makes their accomplishments more theoretical and less satisfying to listen to compared to the chops-havin' british reggae fans of yore.
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 14:02 (fourteen years ago) link
i'll be as harsh on bad drumming as anybody and i see where you guys are coming from on that point, but i don't know how constructive it is to compare them to really chops-y bands from 20 years ago. there's something much smaller-scale and homemade about their music because, at the end of the day, as i've said 5,000 times, they're an indie pop band.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 29 January 2010 14:14 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah, i mean, they're contemporary indie pop, it pretty much goes w/o saying they don't have half the chops of their 70s/80s equivalents, and one reason i rarely write or post about those kinds of bands is i'd just harp on that point over and over myself
― some dude, Friday, 29 January 2010 14:18 (fourteen years ago) link
i dunno about "constructive" (though, if they're listening, it does suggest a way they could improve, however sardonically the critique is offered) but I think it's a valid criticism to explain why these guys don't satisfy as a band with a #1 album and critical raves, whether or not they have the saving grace of amateurity implied by "indie-pop"
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 14:20 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah i just think it changes the starting point from "why don't they GROOVE like the police" or something to "they fit within this musical tradition which may or may not be for you"
― call all destroyer, Friday, 29 January 2010 14:22 (fourteen years ago) link
i mean i'll definitely agree that there is a slightness to their music that could make the #1 and a lot of the positive press tough to swallow, but these are strange times we live in
― call all destroyer, Friday, 29 January 2010 14:23 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah i mean it's worth bringing up, at least once. i wonder if the band would be really appreciative of a negative review that talked just about their performances and said nothing about the cultural subtext. (xpost)
― some dude, Friday, 29 January 2010 14:23 (fourteen years ago) link