Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

Vampire Weekend: The William Makepeace Thackeray of 2010?

Maybe Tom Townsend in Whit Stillman's Metropolitan is a closer analogue to VW than Gatsby etc.

i like them now! i'm gonna buy the album. do they have cool 12 inches with cool b-sides? they remind me of lots of 80's stuff i liked way back when. like i said on the grammys thread, all this race/class stuff is silly. if they were british nobody would even care. it would just be part of the act. like the song i heard from the new album. they've got pep. i like pep. and their songs are pretty short. another plus.

they could stand to be even shorter.

koenigs themes are more like roths or woody allens. not that hes nearly as good a writer as either of those two, but great gatsby is only a useful comparison point in terms of its alternating fascination and disgust with wealth and society.

This thread lost me several years ago (like Scott says, "the race and class stuff on the vampire thread is funny. if they were british nobody would even blink. they would just be british!"), but did anybody link to the reviews below yet? Am I the first person to point out that the beginning of "Cousins" sounds kind of like the Contortions, or not?

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1870

Only an American could say that the class stuff wouldn't be an issue in Britain. If they were British and singing about Oxbridge and country houses in the same way, they'd have been torn to shreds the minute they appeared.

sorry i dont really see why "if vampire weekend were british" is relevant--british and american class systems are different, and british and american bands tend to deal with class in different ways... i mean, this should be fairly obvious? vampire weekend clearly hit a nerve with people thanks to the way they engage w/ class, so i dont know why its so weird that people are talking about it

like, "if vampire weekend were black," people would be writing very different things about it. "if vampire weekend were lesbian punks" people would have a different attitude.

http://booksslicedanddiced.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/sag-harbor.jpg

if Vampire Weekend were soccer moms but sounded exactly the same, they would be everyone's favorite band

a vampire weekend slating which doesn't mention class even once (scroll to end): http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=879:new-music-cd-round-up-5&Itemid=27

But that's a terrible review written from the point of view of an indie-hating world music specialist. I get the feeling that if someone wrote VAMPIRE WEEKEND R SHIT on a wall with their own excrement you'd applaud that as well.

if vampire weekend could fly, this would be... a... no-fly zone.

I think ur a contra.

if they're appropriating "world music", it's pretty much fair enough for world music specialists to judge them on those terms

“I’d sue if I was Paul Simon!”

wow that wins some kind of irony award

But then our potential saviours go and get it horribly wrong by creating music which, in its unrelenting tweeness and preciousness, is the antithesis of the muscular, joyful African and Brazilian music that inspired them. If you fail to recreate the elasticity of the rhythms and the edgy, mercurial qualities of – for example - the great Congolese guitarists then you’ve missed the point.

really? have you?

the antithesis of this music, my my.

xpost to lex But they're not trying to be world music, are they? Breaking news: "Band incorporates style in different way. Purist disapproves."

you know who is pretty fucking dope? king sunny ade! i just got into him.

currently listening to "Horchata"

these guys are kind of great and that is something I was really not expecting given the way ppl react to them (was totally expecting to hate them like Arcade Fire and Arctic Monkeys)

arctic monkeys had one great song IMO - "riot van"

but they are mostly o.k.

arcade fire sounds like john cafferty & the beaver brown band

Only not as good.

Always thought "Keep The Car Running" sounded more like "On The Dark Side" than anything else.

"on the darkside" is kind of a jam, it must be said

if they're appropriating "world music", it's pretty much fair enough for world music specialists to judge them on those terms

but not very useful unless you are also a world music specialist who shares this guy's particular and clear hangups (sharing sensibilities from world music apparently means having to sound just like what you are copying, which aside from being more problematic from a psuedo-imperialist POV also means not being able to insert any of yourself into your own music; having to give a shit whether someone 25 years ago walked any of the same ground you are working with now and getting grouchy about that)

was listening to this album today on my lunch break, I'm obsessing on the bit where he goes
"You and this model sit outside the side-
In a house on a street they wouldn’t park on the night.

Dad was a risk taker.
His was a shoe maker.
You greatest hits 2006,
Little listmaker."

and then you know the chorus is

"Me and my cousins,
and
You and your cousins
It’s a line that is always running.
Me and my cousins,
You and your cousins,
I can feel it coming"

and its really great the way its a song abt i think remembering spending the summer @ ur cousins house when you were younger, but like obv they had more money than u and you kinda realise that you're different from them now bc of that and its got something to do with some family history to do with your dad that nobody ever talks abt now and its even got a bit of that self-made man romance ("his was a shoemaker") and i think its really rich as a little vignette even if its not as straighforwardly "narrative" as yeah jarvis cocker or something,

i really like singing that horchata/balaklava line. glad this hashing out of the lyrical content is taking place. it's helping me dig this a little more.

arcade fire sounds like a poor mans indie springsteen which is fine with me

a rich kid's indie springsteen, i think you mean!!!!

springsteen is supposed to be the poor man's sprinsteen, aminotcorrect

nabisco might become vampire weekend's jon landau

HIPSTER ALERT!!!!!

http://www.backstagegallery.com/photos/BH/3010/Bruce-Springsteen-The-E-Street-Band-pictures-1975-BH-3010-004-l.jpg

well whatever arcade fire are, they sound enough like springsteen that i enjoy their music

also they do put on a pretty rad show i must say

well whatever arcade fire are, they sound enough like springsteen that i enjoy their music

haha this is exactly the reason I like the arcade fire

even i don't really hate the arcade fire (but i do hate the little springsteen i've heard)

not self-assured enough?

"Horchata" has no flow for me. It stops too often to let the mediocre vocals in. I don't care what they're singing about. If I want provocative ideas, I'll just pull out the old library card.

okay "hate" is strong re: Arcade Fire, I just am not into them

when i want provocative ideas i fire up the browser and head to ilm

THIS BAND ISNT AS GOOD AS ZZ TOP!

^truth brick thrown thru the window of max's worldview

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

i hate arcade fire guys

Bands who I still don't understand why people think they sound like Springsteen: Arcade Fire, Hold Steady, Gaslight Anthem (at least one of which I like, even more than John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band.)

sharing sensibilities from world music apparently means having to sound just like what you are copying

But he likes "Cousins"! Weirder thing is how he hopes "the 40-year tyranny of plodding kit-drum beats and testosterone-fuelled power chords may soon burn itself out," but he still wants "more red meat next time"! Sounds kind of conflicted.

but i also kinda hate springsteen

this may have already been linked somewhere on this thread, but a friends notes this sfj pavement essay from sometime last century as sort of germane here.

but even there, this whole idea that "these aren't things rock n roll usually talks about," i mean, maybe not "usually" but it's a long way from being new. several rolling stones songs come to mind -- "play with fire," "19th nervous breakdown," "dead flowers," it's not like the mores of the ruling class are a new pop topic.

Not to mention Steely Dan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=157nAcA6Woc

^^^
xhuxk if you don't understand why people think this sounds like springsteen, I dunno what to tell you.

oh i really love this springsteen cover (tho)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k83xsEAFig

arcade fire is springsteen shivering on some amphetamine withdrawal.