Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride

this is a much better pair of singles than the first two we got for MVOTC

uh neither of these touch “step”

otm

Who ever said HH sounded like Touch of Grey is way too otm

Seriously that solo tho

Like both these songs

xpost on Ottoman, Ezra recycled the "feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel too" line from Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

I’m not annoyed just perplexed, and as a meta touch within the context of the double LP might be cool

whether or not it works is up for debate but it seemed pretty obvious to me that that was done for artistic effect

i actually really liked "Harmony Hall" on first listen. not sure why it's so unlike around here.

i think everything everyone is picking out in harmony hall (the solo, the dead vibe, the piano, the meta chorus) has been done with extreme intent. it's an incredible song and i hope the rest of the album is this worked over because that's what vw does really well.

it's very pretty

yeah i'm liking it despite going in skeptical that they could make me care again

i don't hate it!

I expected to not care one bit about this, but HH is a very nice song that I might listen to a dozen times over the course of my life.

"harmony hall" is a little fractured structurally and some of the vocal parts are not his best, but i personally love the production

that said i like "2021" better

it all kinda reminds me of dirty projectors a bit, at least as far as the guitars go

& i guess longstreth played on hh

After a few more plays of HH, it's not as bad as I first thought.
I still don't find it great (nowhere near their previous singles) and am still disappointed after 6 years but the production/arrangements are more vivid than on MVOTC and it does sound good (especially the bass/drums with a kinda madchester groove !).

Loving 'Harmony Hall', like you know how when bands try and do a 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' thing and it's usually rubbish? This actually pulls it off.

I liked 'Modern Vampires' a lot as well but I feel like another indie pop record with multicoloured synths and huge clattery drums is the last thing the world needs right now.

re: madchester and "you can't always get what you want" i definitely thought of "movin' on up" on first listen

"harmony hall" feels exactly where they should be at this point in their career - a little more relaxed & not as frantic or with as much of the tightly wound baroque flourishes, a good way to mature

Yeah MVOTC lacked the baroque keyboards/strings as well as the afro guitar licks and a general lightness.
It's good if they go back to these key aspects of their sound.

MVOTC still had some of the baroque aspect ("step" and "don't lie" especially, which were some of the stronger tracks) but lacked that general lightness from the afro guitar etc. and i think that contrast was fairly key to the first two albums. "harmony hall" is a return to that lightness but not quite to the same degree which is what i like about it

yes, I totally agree.

All I can think about is how Brad Paisley married the actress from Father of the Bride and then wrote a song about how he married the actress from Father of the Bride and titled it Back to the Future.

Liking "Harmony Hall" a lot. It hits enough positive touchstones for me ("Movin' on Up" was the one that immediately came to mind) and combines them in an interesting and catchy enough way to stand apart. I also didn't notice the "Finger Back" quote until reading it here, but that's not one of my favorite songs on MVOTC. "2021" doesn't do much for me, but seems like a song that may have more purpose for the flow of an album

k nvm i love both of these. excited for the rest of the album!!!

2021 sounds kinda 1975

Feels like a slight move back towards the bubbly synthetic touches of Contra. Is it me or has his voice/singing changed (seems a bit more generic somehow)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkPWqnTWj38

Wow he still looks so juvenile. I could say he’s like 22 or something !
Will watch the whole intw later, thanks for posting it.
As for his singing/voice on HH, I find it’s the same as it was. Same inflexions and even melodic touches.
But the generic/MOR impression might come from the melodies that I find a bit lazy (hence my initial comparison with a 90s romcom opening song !).

what happened to his hair and sartorial sense :(

The intro and verses are very nice (both melody and guitar licks). The chorus and instrumental chorus are feel good enough and by the final it’s groovy/fun. The piano and guitar solos are great. The prechorus is the part I don’t enjoy much.

I think it’s just his « radio » look !

his hair looks the same

he once believed in gel

He probably knew he'd be wearing headphones that day, and planned accordingly.

He's 34 years old and has a brand new baby. He's probably past the hair gel and boat shoes? (Also, who cares?)

I actually think he wears his pyjamas in that radio intw !
Especially as they say it's very early in the morning...

(Also, who cares?)

ahem

To stay on sartorial issues : the baggy flashy sweatpants here are a strange combination with the with shirt/overcoat...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDLZ90Oc8FY

Harmony Hall is gorgeous and amazing and it should/will have a place on every Wes Anderson-core film soundtrack till the end of time

listened to the singles from the s/t last night and goddamn what a perfect group of songs. I still get such a thrill from A-Punk.

Long version !
https://youtu.be/qa1t5bjJbms

I still haven't heard the new songs - will probably just absorb the LP as a whole when it comes out.

They plan to release 2 songs/month until April apparently.
So it’s like getting an LP first then a regular album.

just got tickets for philly!!!!! :D::D:D:D:D:D:D

Just came here to say that "Harmony Hall" is a fucking jam. The second new song I enjoy while it's playing, but can't remember how it goes when it's off... it's just kinda forgettable. Got tickets for Red Rocks on the last date of their fall tour. Hope the next couple songs draw out more of the relaxed, Grateful Dead-esque vibe from "Harmony Hall."

A friend just surprised me w/tix for the Houston date!

i am jazzed for this record

Maybe just me but every time I hear the chorus of Harmony Hall I think it's Jeff Tweedy.

This all is gonna make the announcement that Woody Allen will be playing clarinet on the next VW album that much more awkward.

― "what are you DOING to fleetwood mac??" (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, March 8, 2021 9:20 PM (fifty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Guilty lol

I’m still baffled that there’s been no press mention of the fact that the drummer and bassist of this band don’t appear to have played on the album at all.

Like, even if everyone in the bands is cool with that reality, it’s weird that it isn’t mentioned anywhere.

All that said - I have somewhat of an allergy to bands where it feels like the front person plus whoever, where the interviews come down to that person and that person doesn’t even mention band mates.

if you scroll up a bit, there's something a bit more urgent pertaining to this band that the music press should mention

(though I get why they haven't for legal/ethical/journalistic/etc. reasons)

Nbd but I don't think that's true, I think it's the band rhythm section of everything unless otherwise noted

Murgatriod, yes, I am quite aware of that and I agree. Hopefully it didn’t seem like I was trying to minimize that story. And, yes, I’m quite aware that my revive was pedantic and won’t matter to anyone else really

Jordan, it’s just really weird to look at album credits (online and on the physical CD) and encounter absolutely zero reference to the band members other than the leader.

Online it seems like they're primarily writing/production credits, not performance credits (except for the guests)? But yeah it's a weird omission.

It makes Rostam Batmanglij's departure more understandable, when he talked about having his work "stand on its own."

Like the implication it needs to be recognized outfront and on its own instead of potentially buried or uncredited altogether.

I thought Modern Vampires made clear that in the studio Koenig and (before he skedaddled) Batmanglij did most of the playing and programming.

Rostam’s solo stuff is great - on par with any of the VW stuff but a little more sonically adventurous. His new singles are getting me excited for the new LP.

No way -- the lyrics and singing aren't halfway as interesting.

Yeah from what I know his work has the former guitarist from a famous band gone solo syndrom : the music can be interesting but the vocal/lyrical side is weak...

I dig it.

This song I've never heard before came up on Spotify, and I assumed it was a song by Vampire Weekend, specifically, from this album, that I didn't know. But it's not, it's a song by the Jerry Garcia band from 1978!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YZEEQdpPzg

haha, nice

Yeah they were sort of open about the Jerry Garcia influence on this album and even played a lick from china cat sunflower on their cover of Post Malone’s sunflower - and they also played bits of their own song “sunflower” in it.

Iirc some Vampire Weekend members even played with The Grateful Dead in a concert tribute to Jerry Garcia.

Yeah, and I remember reading an interview with Ezra where he said this album was musically inspired specifically by the Jerry Garcia Band rather than the Grateful Dead. This makes total sense after hearing "Rubin and Cherise"

Whoa, so I was actually right! I thought maybe this was one of those things where it sounded identical to me but it was some idiosyncratic thing about my ear/brain.

Yep

“Father of the Bride” isn’t total dad-rock; it’s got weird beats and processed synth sounds and samples of tracks by Hans Zimmer and the Japanese electronic musician Haruomi Hosono — evidence of the “adaptability” that led promoter Craig Nyman to book Vampire Weekend as one of the few rock acts (alongside Post Malone and Billie Eilish) at September’s Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas.

But pay close attention to “Stranger” — especially the little instrumental section after the second verse — and you’ll catch an undeniable whiff of the Jerry Garcia Band.

“And I’m talking JGB, not the Dead,” Koenig said. “That’s an important distinction.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-ent-vampire-weekend-feature-0507-story.html

Gotta assume that's influence from his Time Crisis co-host (who has a Grateful Dead tribute band)

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grateful-dead-phish-vampire-weekend-members-on-jerry-garcia-tribute-177078/

It was the drummer Chris Tomson in 2012.