Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

I love Contra--and it's a far step above the s/t--but the critical "conversation" surrounding it has more or less made me realize I'm completely burnt out on rock criticism. It's been good, though, because now I've been spending more time digging up a bunch of songs I used to listen to when I was first getting into music twelve or so years ago.

I'm completely burnt out on rock criticism

And you're what, twenty-one? You have a long few decades ahead of you.

Temporarily, Ned, temporarily. (I'm 22.)

Which means you can legally get drunk to forget criticism burning you out.

http://drunkensocks.typepad.com/

Meanwhile, one Mr. Xgau speaks:

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/Smart-and-Smarter/ba-p/2154

his column runs on bn.com now??

For many months now.

Good column. The Jonas Bros analogy was nice.

"This is all still privilege. But it's no closer to ruling-class power than it is to the affluence of the average American geekboy who gets to insult music he resents online."

Heh heh

A great, great piece. Also, an interesting link to this old Banning Eyre interview, where he proves that not all world music experts have to be myopic dicks, a la Howard Male.

http://www.afropop.org/multi/interview/ID/142/Ezra+Koenig,+Vampire+Weekend.+2008

does xgau call anyone "fatso" in that?

(for ref - sometime i read christgau and am amazed... )

Jenny Lewis gets described as "strictly gorgeous," while her male indie analogues get "belatedly exuberant" and "mildly emo."

He calls Koenig "cute" several times, bro.

i dig it. vocally i'm wondering if the vampire weekend dude was a big fan of sublime.

― scott seward, Monday, February 8, 2010 10:54 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

read some interview recently where they were talking about going for a cali-ish sound and specifically name-checked sublime

from that popmatters one:

Some of your bandmates have mentioned that they feel Contra is sort of a California album, or a Pacific Coast album. Could you elaborate on that a little?

I think that was more of a conceptual theme. Some of it has to do with the fact that we recorded this album in New York in a pretty standard New York spring, where it was rainy and gray and the idea of California was very exciting at that point. I mean, a lot of unique bands come from California that we get inspiration from like Operation Ivy or Sublime or whatever. I would say it makes a lot of sense to us but it might be hard to point to anything more specifically. I’ll just say that “California loomed large.”

He's gone on about Jenny Lewis at length elsewhere. (xposts)

did a GIS for ezra koenig. ok-ish from certain angles, hints of cuteness snuffed out by "what the actual fuck are you wearing". SHORTS? seriously? fuck off.

i mean, those specifically patterned shorts, on stage, i don't have like a vendetta against all shorts ever

"indie purists" have bad dreams about bridge & tunnel types

pretty sure he'd argue that "strictly gorgeous" is a music thing not a looks thing.

"Indie purists" *don't* have bad dreams about bridge & tunnel types?

I figured as much, it's just the sort of thing at which I immediately bristle.

so much x-post

not sure i'm right, but the band members he describes sound to me like kids of people who if need be could pick up the phone and talk to someone who matters if not right away then a few phonecalls down the line. i don't have a good handle on how close to the ruling class the average online geekboy is, but the internet is pretty democratic these days.

but it's stupid to get hung up on that when this is mostly about the music. it's a great piece. "koenig is smarter than you haters" is lame tho.

i'm all right with xgau calling jenny lewis "strictly gorgeous" cos i'm really skeeved out by men of my demographic losing their sense of propriety talking about her, plus her band is not very good.

Nah, Matos is right and I feel bad for bringing it up.

I like the piece a lot, but what do people think about Christgau's claim that "Historically, syncretism has been the main way pop musics have evolved"? I mean, I get how, say, Bob Wills or Elvis or Donna Summer or yeah the Beatles were syntheses of musics that came before; not so sure I get how, say, Louis Armstrong or the Velvet Underground or Joni Mitchell or Black Sabbath or Kraftwerk or the Sex Pistols or Pavement were (well, I suppose Sabbath could be heard as a synthesis of horror movie soundtracks with '60s hard rock, etc., but I don't think that's how most people have heard them.) An interesting claim, but I'm not certain it's as obvious as Bob seems to imply in that paragraph.

Yeah, I agree. Sometimes pop music evolves through syncretism - ie., introducing elements borrowed from other genres, styles, traditions - but other times it evolves through refinement of a form's existing elements, or because of changes in music technology, or for other reasons entirely.

The key word is the adjective "pop." That's how I read it.

maybe in those cases, the synthesis had already been explored by other artists, but the ones you mention just had the talent/opportunity/whatever to take things to that next level? i mean, with louis armstrong for ex., it's been pretty well documented how early jazz evolved (to be reductive about it, african music + european instruments & harmony + collective improvisation), but he was the first guy who really had the chops to be able to carry the spotlight as a soloist & frontman.

xp

xhuxk each of those artists you mention look to me like they syncretized ideas from outside music. like, VU = 60s garage + 60s avante-garde downtown art ish, for example

Exactly, which is why xgau's choice of adjective matters.

VU = 60s garage + 60s avante-garde downtown art ish, for example

This doesn't really tell you anything about VU's actual music though. What does avant-garde art sound like? We now say it sounds like VU, but that's only because VU made music that sounded a certain way and they branded it as being somehow avant-garde and arty. Before VU, the thought of mixing garage rock with avante-garde art wouldn't have suggested anything in particular.

So I think these kinds of formulas make for fun rock critic parlor games, but I think they're too abstract to really explain anything about how music evolves. I think the term "syncretism" needs to have a fairly concrete meaning to be useful, which should relate to mixing together clearly defined elements of different musical traditions.

Before VU, the thought of mixing garage rock with avante-garde art wouldn't have suggested anything in particular.

which is why VU are successful and/or important. nobody would have known, before hand what modernist/surrealist poetry + american folk traditional music would have resulted in, but know we can just say, bob dylan. people try things, and if it works, before you know it, it just seems natural

i guess i don't have a problem with "fun rock critic parlor games." what other SERIOUS BUSINESS are they supposed to be up to, anyway?

"but NOW we can just say" i mean

I have no problem with fun parlor games either (that's a lot of what ILM is about after all). I'm just saying that we shouldn't let these kinds of amusing formulas fool us into thinking that we are explaining something about how music actually evolves. These formulations are entirely post-hoc. They don't explain how it happened, they are just a way of making connections after the fact.

These formulations are entirely post-hoc. They don't explain how it happened, they are just a way of making connections after the fact.

well i think the explanations of why things turned out the way they did, the processes at the time, are a lot more contingent and frankly half-assed.

right place at the right time, i was just trying to get laid, i dunno seemed cool at the time, i was ripping off this other thing but kinda did it different, we just kinda got lucky and it sounded good

^^ this is "how art evolves" sad to say!

I agree, but I don't think it's sad. I guess I prefer the creative spark to remain slightly mysterious. It would be sadder to me if it could be reduced to a few elements from Column A plus a few from Column B.

bbbut we were talking about syncretism!! it's a given that if you're talking about something halfway good, there's always "column C: MAGIC" added

Right, but Xgau saying "Historically, syncretism has been the main way pop musics have evolved" seems to leave MAGIC no more than 49% of the credit - even less, because you've got to leave room for all the other factors causing music to evolve: such as technology (could there have been a Hendrix without a Les Paul, could there have been a Phil Spector without the multi-track mixing board, could there be techno with no drum machines?), the refinement and rearrangement of existing elements, and so on.

Historically, magic has been the main way pop musics have evolved

Ha ha, I didn't even mention James Brown. (Or reggae, which clearly had calypso and r&b in its genes, but still. Or hip-hop, which obviously synthesizes everything, but that's hardly the main thing it does.) Also don't get how pretty much every artist I mention doesn't eventually impact pop music, at least as much as Vampire Weekend are likely to, so I'm not sure why Bob's choosing that word matters much.

John Cale himself has said that the VU were syncretic in the way goole describes, and Ozzy has said something similar about Sabbath - they're both very conscious about what influences they brought to the table, but that doesn't mean - and I don't think xgau is saying - that music is ONLY x + y + z.

Between the word "evolved" and the way he's talking about "pop musics" (and not specific artists), I feel like he's making a pretty narrow claim there -- that the primary motor of new styles is some kind of cross-current between different things. How that operates with a specific act is kind of a different matter, but I'm not sure he's claiming anything much grander than the idea that, in the big picture, mixing and matching is a pretty normal pop thing to do.

Anyway, fwiw, I'm also sort of playing devil's advocate, since I'm the guy who wrote in my second book "Collages has always been implicit in rock music, in all music -- Songs are made up of pieces of other songs." (Always quote Christgau in the same graph as saying "In the late '60s, 'eclectic' was rock criticism's first cliche"!) Just seemed like an interesting claim to zero in on, either way.

("Also quote," I meant, not "Always.")

read that as "college has always in implicit in rock music"

No, only Steely Dan. And Vampire Weekend. (But you probably read it that way partly because I dumbly typed "has" instead of "have.")

okay, i've got it now. sublime + haircut 100 = vampire weekend

who knew people were needing such a thing?

hey scott haven't you been waiting for this?

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13905-talking-to-you-talking-to-me/