Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

Alfred, your time is now.

The Decembrists got there before me.

Alfred, your time to do something ten million times better than the fucking Decembrists can ever goddamn dream of is now.

I'm skeptical of the magnitude of the "appropriation" happening here, because so far as I can tell, there are basically two very small, common things this band has picked up on in African/Caribbean music and figured out how to apply to indie pop:

1. That clean guitar tone, and the idea that you can use guitar as a melodic/harmonic instrument. Most bands like them build everything up from rhythm guitar chords; guitar is the spine of everything. VW figured out how not to do that -- their guitar is all one-note lines and double-stops, and it never takes up much space.

2. The idea that you can have a "guitar" band without rock drumming. You can use lots of different rhythms and play them sorta light and distant -- more like percussion than rock drumming.

Those seem like the two big inspirations taken, and they're both things that make them put together their songs in a way that's pretty different from the vast majority of indie bands with guitars. Both of those things are more like "useful concepts" than really trying to imitate African or Caribbean music. (On the few occasions that they really try to imitate, it can be kinda embarrassing! Like those "Blake's got a new face" backing vocals.)

DISCLAIMER: My earliest experiences of music involved my dad going back and forth between east-African folk records and A Flock of Seagulls, so I may be warped in some way that makes this stuff seem more normal than it is.

didn't see your R.I.P. thread, alfred! just started one on ilb. nobody will care there either.

the woodentops will never die. apparently.

ok who's turn is it?

I remember dude from WASP was asked if he wrote his own songs and he said, "shit no, i can barely read"

Ezra Koenig in 2013:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7UG2IghngM

i wouldn't even mind if they covered penelope tree. they should have at it. another good b-side idea. that's how generous i'm feeling right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFxbgdkD9i8

they will NEVER be as great as this, but that's okay! at least they're fucking trying! what the fuck have you done? (sorry, i always resort to minor threat lyrics when i've had too much coffee.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ouBnu9AQcU

CAUTION: POLITICALLY INCORRECT TRIBAL RHYTHMS AND JUNGLE NOISES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9zfNlV_Fio

(morrissey was soooooooooo taking notes when that album came out...)

Ever read this, Scott?:

Frontman Bid's arch vocals gave the band a wonderful camp quality, and it was probably his lyrical smarts that alerted a young Morrissey to their presence; they were even one of his favourite groups before he formed the Smiths. Johnny Marr recalls first meeting Morrissey and flicking through his singles collection that Morrissey had whittled down to just 10 seven-inchs. Along with some girl groups and T-Rex, were the Monochrome Set. This must have impressed Marr, because they too were one of his favourite bands.

i never read actual confirmation before! you can totally tell though. it's very obvious.

didn't see your R.I.P. thread, alfred! just started one on ilb. nobody will care there either.

Read The Embezzler; I just did.

i never thought of the 'blakes got a new face's as a caribean/african/whatever thing, seemed more like a standard pop music vocal trick thing to me. there aren't (as m)any of those goofy amateurish moments on 'contra' and i kind of miss em. on s/t it was like they sent it off into the world before they had time to comb it over, this one's maybe been scrubbed a bit too clean.

Really? I don't think it's atrocious, or anything, but those group backing vocals on "Blake" feel to me like they're starting to replicate a kind of west-African harmony singing, which ... that's one point where certain sensors start triggering. Being a new-wave / indiepop group that learned a few neat tricks from elsewhere -- that's great. Trying to provide what "elsewhere" provides -- not so much. But yeah, that's sort of the last time -- maybe the only time -- I've felt like they stepped on that line.

yeah but those vocals are great on the little break near the end when there's the coughing noise so

to me it sounds like those chirpy bird-like doowop harmonies. haven't heard very much west african harmony singing though, so i'm probably just wrong. tbh i probably cringed first time i heard it, too, but now it's one of my favourite bits. i like it went bands make innocent little mistakes, or risk sounding silly.

ecuador with ac wher u from btw?

Waterford - home of Brendan Bowyer, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Val Doonican, and half of late 60's art-rock pioneers Nirvana.

ah ok i didn't know ur were irish and then u said some things

I just bought Contra because of this thread and I am very happy with it.

yeah a lot of lex's argument falls down for me here bc i like this album so much that it cant suck as much ass as he keeps tryna tell me?

Lex's argument is basically the inverse of that - I think basically a lot of this argument comes down to "ultimately all of the things you are saying are good/bad about this music can also be considered bad/good if you'd only share the same basic attitude towards it that I do."

There's no knock-out argument that is gonna make half the people here suddenly say, "woah, you are right, this was amazing/terrible all along, how could I be so blind and foolish??!?!"

yeah i meant exactly what u said i was just joshin tho

Yeah obv - i'm a bit humorless tho so like to spell things out.

u r awesome tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N7abHPqTgo

So these guys could use a stronger singer but they don't really need one. Not entirely convinced I want to hear some of these songs live (imagine missing that super-convoluted melody on "Horchata" and the trainwreck that would follow, yikes) but ultimately these guys are one of the few early-80s-thru-00s-prism bands I've heard that I've found instantly appealing.

Live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nPPAiDK_BA

btw I HATED this song in November, but live performances like this made me notice how well they handle the convoluted melody (and Koenig handles the shouty part well).

ha, I am more bothered by how out of tune the backup vocals get than I am by the lead singer

this dude isn't my favorite new vocalist or anything but he certainly knows how to write for his own voice

That SFJ article on Brighten the Corners is apt. Pavement did often deploy signifiers of upper-middle class privilege in their lyrics (which were at least as abstruse and literary as Vampire Weekend's). They made the class connection quite explicit in "You Are a Light", off their following album. Malkmus sings about a university exchange program: "Senior year abroad/I ripped the pea out of the pod/In store for three months of exile in Spain/Where was the danger?" and then rhapsodizes about a fast car: "I drive a stick. Gotta love it. Automatic/Everybody's gotta ride in something". That last line especially, with its languid wistfulness and self-aware irony, is proto-VW.

Have not read this yet, but there's an interview up on PopMatters:

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/119497-the-kids-dont-stand-a-chance-an-interview-with-vampire-weekend/

The interview's with their drummer, actually.

Hearing them today (in the background at Borders) made me think that the Graceland comparisons weren't just facile, but that both really do contrast the average-white-guy voice with the instrumentation.

Well, I’d never played drums in a band before this (Laughs). That was because, the first couple of practices we had I was supposed to play guitar. But we kinda couldn’t find a drummer and I could kinda play, so I thought I’d try and do something.

I hope I play parts that are fairly unique. But at the same time ... I don’t really know what I’m doing, in some respects.

Awesome!

drumming for me in general is like... a huge plus if it's AMAZING (like say, on the first bloc party album) but otherwise rudimentary drumming doesn't bother me at all. i guess i think of spoon who doesn't have a great drummer but mics their drums well and gets great sounds, which is cool.

that live version is great -- & ezra is wearing sneakers

a lot of people and drummers think jim eno is an excellent drummer though

i probably don't know shit about drumming idk -- i can't think of any spoon song where i'm like "holy shit the drumming!"

i think a lot of it is how well he blends into the songs and how he really lives by the band's commitment to minimalism and economy in his drum parts. like there's nothing "complicated" about the drum part on "the way we get by" for example but i can remember every single fill he plays in that song.

i think spoon's drumming is impressive to me because the band as a whole seems so drilled-down. britt daniel doesn't do much on guitar either but they do a lot of rhythmic interplay with simple elements. it's a more-than-sum thing

i guess when i said "not great" i meant "very economic and tight"

actually i think "trouble comes running" from the new one is kind of remarkable because he's actually going kinda nuts for most of it, i guess because it was intended to just be a demo?

that live version is great -- & ezra is wearing sneakers

lol'n

even people who think they don't care much about drumming would notice the difference if vw had a really good drummer, imo.

(but i think there's been a general devaluation of drumming in general in a lot of indie rock. there are good drummers out there, but an awful lot of bands seem to see it as sort of an afterthought. or that's how it sounds to me, anyway. bass playing too, for that matter. devaluation of the rhythm section. o god i'm rewriting that sfj essay...)

this thread made me think i might like spoon who i had never gotten before and based on a couple of youtubes i could be more into them than i thought i would be, i mean are they something i would like?