Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

i dunno, a writer friend of mine says it takes about 20 positive comments to balance one negative one in his mind. i think it's just sort of a natural response. you put something out there, you want people to like it. i'm sure some people are better than others at shrugging off the haters, but i understand people taking it all personally. otoh it is sort of part of the deal. to be fair to ezra, his defensiveness is reasonable-sounding and not especially embarrassing.

I'm speaking more generally of his defensive tone in stuff like the Guardian interview (xpost)

if every article about me referred to me as a wasp when i was jewish i'd get pretty fucking sick of that

otm

yeah, seriously. a different topic for a different thread, but most Jews I know have a very ambiguous relationship to their own whiteness, let alone to this structure of WASPness.

huh - these guys play up the WASP-signifiers nonstop. just cause they aren't *technically* WASPs doesn't mean that that word has no place in a discussion of them.

thats uhhhh not the point

what's uhhhh the point then

i doubt dude is mad because WASP-ness is "in a discussion."

i get the sense that he is a little bit annoyed that they are described, frequently, as some kind of WASP bad.

see the distinction?

they've done everything in their power to come off as a WASP band, so if they're annoyed that people call them a WASP band, well, maybe they should stop wearing polo shirts and singing about cape cod.

He keeps patting himself on the back for using upper-class signifiers that people use to leap to conclusions about them or their music, so that's the price of the game he's playing tbh. (xpost)

they've done everything in their power to come off as a WASP band,

Jews don't wear Izod?

anyway I came up with this fascinating google search result when researching this:

http://www.strmfrnt.org/forum/showthread.php?p=7726207

MOD NOTE: linking to this site is an incredibly stupid idea that is likely to get you tempbanned. Stop it.

oh jesus fucking christ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hwE0slNd3Y

hey dudes wasn't there always a rule about googleproofing st0rmfr0nt because you don't want them to see track backs and no one wanted an invasion of those dudes?

um if there was a mod can feel free to googleproof that

lol honestly was not sure if it's an innocent mistake or an attempted thread-nuke

frankly I think their views would be v. interesting in this thread

+ maybe the top 50 of 2009 thread, where race will play an imp. factor in the arguments over who was right

no

they've done everything in their power to come off as a WASP band, so if they're annoyed that people call them a WASP band, well, maybe they should stop wearing polo shirts and singing about cape cod.

― iatee, Friday, January 29, 2010 2:45 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

He keeps patting himself on the back for using upper-class signifiers that people use to leap to conclusions about them or their music, so that's the price of the game he's playing tbh. (xpost)

― some dude, Friday, January 29, 2010 2:45 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

anyways, back to the discussion--i think the issue with this is that WASPness is barely even a living culture these days and critics are kinda ignorant about how they throw it around w/r/t this band. so when some reviewer is like "hey wow look at these white WASP kids who went to Columbia" i don't see what is wrong w/ezra gently correcting peoples dumb preconceived notions.

iatee quit while you're behind

^^^ referring to me being jewish I suppose

when I think columbia I think rich jewish kids, so yeah I guess WASP=columbia is a lazy and wrong association but that might not have anything to do with vampire weekend

wtf is the "balaclava" thing a reference to?

it's what ezra calls his penis

wtf is the "balaclava" thing a reference to?

― ben bernankles (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, January 29, 2010 2:44 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

lol @ u

its a reference to search engine "google"

haha i've been wanting to ask that the whole time but was too embarrassed cuz everyone seemed to know what it was...basically a fancy ski mask, so google sez i guess. or a city in the ukraine

balaclava horchata not even the most wtf lyric on the record:

when I was 17/I had wrists like steel

ew ezra

haha yeah that lyric...

another stellar post over at nabisco's tumblr, fyi

basically a fancy ski mask, so google sez i guess. or a city in the ukraine

Both:

The name "balaclava" comes from the town of Balaklava, near Sevastopol in Crimea, Ukraine. During the Crimean War, knitted balaclavas were sent over to the British troops to help protect them from the bitter cold weather. They are traditionally knitted from wool, and can be rolled up into a hat to cover just the crown of the head.

i posted that more for the suggestion that rappers never caught any flak for homophobic lyrics, and certainly none on the level of the huge protests at his balaclava lyric. plus getting stick for privilege and responding without irony, "what about the fucking blacks?"

hey m@tt, the city, also famous battle, charge of light brigade, tennyson all that

xpost

I think "balaclava" is British slang. Like "anorak." That's the only place I'd ever heard it used prior to VW.

also a balaclava is NAGL

thx y'all i have now officially learned something today.

also that other thing is a mexican beverage!

i feel the "we're not WASPS" is a convenient dodge for them. people throwing around that term are lazy (and technically wrong), but it is also clearly just being used as a term to stand-in in for rich & privileged, i don't think most people using it are like "wow, wonder if ezra is presbyterian or episcopalian" so pointing out "hey, dudes i'm jewish" isn't really addressing what people are finding annoying.

horchata is a delicious, delicious drink. jesus christ, i wish i had one right now. if you're ever in hermosa beach, ca, go to La Penita for a godly horchata, friends.

they are the well-educated sons of well-off professionals who got in to good schools, and there, got to see a whole other level of crazy privilege and wealth, far above themselves. there's a lot of intra-elite observation/discomfort/sniping going on in these records. what they 'are' and what they are looking at aren't exactly the same thing, class-wise

that would be interesting if it was interesting.

i mean, i'm sure there's some kind of smart thing to say about all that that hasn't been said by all the writers before them that have sort of observed the same things. but asserting that that's what they're doing doesn't mean they're doing it well.

no i guess it doesn't?

upper middle-class anxiety in the presence of old money

tips my goal in posting is not to try to get you to like a band

xp yeah and especially when the old money girls are taking a term off to bus around guatemala

Rostam is talking about nabisco's post on the twitter: http://twitter.com/matsoR

And apparently talking to the "Chicago Reader music editor"

http://twitter.com/matsoR/status/8184054742

shamelessly trying to curry favor with whiney