Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride

you're bland

Something this album gets right in a way the other ones maybe didn’t is that the melodies are industrial strength but this time there’s a certain lightness of touch that keeps the whole from being overbearing. (Which might help explain why I’ve never rated this band too too highly, in terms of year end lists and such, in the past - despite the fact that I do like them a lot.)

Because of the new album release the local station that plays this stuff is playing more from them. "Unbelievers" popped up and I forgot a) it existed (I've never really listened to VW at home) and b) how much I like it.

VW is very bland in general

I think this album at least there are leaning in to a 1990 triple-A radio station format vibe

I was hoping this album was going to lean hard into "we're having a baggy revival whether you like it or not" but large chunks of it feel like they landed on "you know, Jim Croce is really kind of nice"

True story: I just found out that Jim Croce is buried maybe two plots over from my dad!

girl, if you don’t know by now... ;)

Rastam and Ezra
Founded a band
The music they made
Was just unbearably bland.
Rastam went solo
Ezra went on
But the album he finished
Was unbearably long.

re: Ezra not pretending the band is a democracy anymore:

the impression i got from the credits for the pre-release tracks is that the rhythm section was barely involved at all in this album and it's basically an Ezra solo album - they were only credited with backing vocals on a few of the pre-release tracks and bass/drums were played by some LA session guys. they could have more playing credits on some of the album cuts though idk i haven't seen the full liner notes yet. in this piece: https://www.stereogum.com/featured/vampire-weekend-ezra-koenig-interview-father-of-the-bride/ Ezra does talk a bit about the band always having been his vision even if he did write with others

i really don't know how someone could argue the first two VW albums are bland of all things, hard to think of a more inventive indie band from the time.

NPR interview today was a mix of endearing and insufferable.

they've always played "accessible" sounds i think that's what ppl mean by bland

i love the album extremely chill gives me warm vibes

big fan of it. wanders a bit second half, but that's to be expected with so many songs new to the ears. i'm glad the band has become a kind of project rather than depending on the playing of the individual members. seems like a good way to go.

VW is Ezra and yer granny on bongos.

"spring snow" has really similar vibes to the new lambchop album, which i love

better singing, though

Could someone explain what is so "inventive" and about this band? Like being an early 00s indie band who did a thirdhand version of Paul Simon's secondhand version of African stuff?

I think a lot of it was they were cute and dressed well

On the first two albums their mishmash of musique concrète, programmed beats, light ska, high life guitar, and gnomic observations about class impressed the hell out of me.

Or you could read ten thousand other reviews.

Musique concrète?

sound effects, samples, etc

the French sounds more precious, and they deserve it

Could someone explain what is so "inventive" and about this band? Like being an early 00s indie band who did a thirdhand version of Paul Simon's secondhand version of African stuff?

it’s funny how some albums like graceland in the twisted minds of vdubs haters are held up like ‘we already did this, not original’ as if every album doesn’t have precedent. like m@tt prob considers hundreds of rock albums inventive for cool rhythms clever riffs tight lyrics (same reasons we love vw) despite having dozens of predecessors

I think a lot of it was they were cute and dressed well

crushing on ezra is definitely a fun part of being a fan, but i still remember my ears perking up when i first heard ‘oxford comma’

I remember perking up in early 2010 when Ezra started wearing skinny jeans

lol :)

Alfred's last seven posts or whatever are tremendously otm

yeah alfred completely otm

i don't think vw really bare that much resemblance to graceland beyond a somewhat superficial african-ness, which of course comes from both being strongly influenced by music from the same continent. graceland though was mostly influenced by south african music while iirc the african music vampire weekend have drawn from is mostly from west and central africa.

on their debut the main innovation is the way they combine that african-influenced sound with all their baroque harpsichord flourishes etc. but on contra they pushed things much further by combining those sounds with kinda chintzy synths and beats in a way that feels completely natural, and a whole bunch of other things too as alfred detailed. the end result is this really lovely blend of organic and synthetic and the way tracks will shift between the two is fantastic. most tracks on contra have enough ideas to make an entire career out of

Of course, MVOTC pushes this approach to its limit such that its rhythm section almost vanishes, and it makes sense that it's a Koenig-Rostam project in name only. I like it least of their albums; the willful wispiness of the music at times repels me.

yeah on MVOTC all the rhythms are so stilted and plodding, it's a big shift for the worse.

yet VW still produced "Step," "Worship You," "Everlasting Arms," and "Obvious Bicycle."

and of course I just read the following Ezra bit in the article that Josh posted:

“I had a feeling that when I wrote ‘Step,’ it was what I had been trying to do the whole time. It’s not gonna get better than that,” he continues. “That, to me, is the peak of that type of songwriting. I felt a sense of accomplishment, and after any sense of accomplishment, you feel a sense of emptiness and itchiness.”

twisted minds of vdubs haters

Wow

"Everlasting Arms" is probably the MVOTC track i understand the least, everything about it is slightly awkward and meandering. the album still has some very good songs ("Obvious Bicycle", "Step", "Don't Lie", "Hannah Hunt" and "Worship You" are what i'd keep) but it's much less consistent and tends much more towards their baroque pop side instead of the more interesting and exciting fusions of the previous two albums.

recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn) at 6:56 4 May 19

On the first two albums their mishmash of musique concrète, programmed beats, light ska, high life guitar, and gnomic observations about class impressed the hell out of me.

Or you could read ten thousand other reviews.

I like reading about Vampire Weekend actually, they are a great band to read about

Ezra feels that way about "Step"? I think my list of favourite VW songs would not at all correspond with the band's own list of favourite VW songs

this album is chill

total volte face from the last one

i guess i have nothing interesting to say about ir

ezra is beautiful

― le goon (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, January 22, 2014

actually , a notion

the late 90s early 00s model of how to structure a long album is a more helpful model in 2019 than the 70s rock one

two vocal choruses then a solo over the chorus progression then two more choruses is fine on the last track of side one of four but when there are thirteen undifferentiated more tracks ahead of it ones heart sinks a little

of course I would find Lambchop slander in the VW thread

Lambchop is super boring

weird to find myself liking modern vampires more than most of the people in this thread. but i think “ya hey” is a perfect song and iirc some people find the sped-up vocal repulsive

Hi!

Had no idea there was dislike for Modern Vampires among fans. I think it’s the third in a trio of classics.

Also surprised there is not more polarization about this album. Am I alone in disliking it or is this just the skewed perspective of ILM? There’s a polish to this album like it is more purposefully aiming for radio play that rubs me the wrong way. Also feel like Ezra’s lyrics are a lot less clever this time around.

the "ya hey" vocal thing is a cool concept but as the main hook i feel like there has to have been a better way to execute it

That hook should be annoying as hell but I love it

It took me a while to get into VW because I kept reading about their innovative style but that always seemed overstated. I think this band's strength is more in writing very memorable hooks and lyrics

graceland though was mostly influenced by south african music while iirc the african music vampire weekend have drawn from is mostly from west and central africa.

I don't really think it's even this thought out. The Ezra quote about African stuff I saw back when was “The minute our band started, we looked to any kind of music that used rock instruments, but didn’t use them in the same old rock way. And I think African music is probably the best example of that.” So I don't think it was a specific act or region he was aiming to replicate so much as simply an unfashionably bright, super clean guitar sound totally removed from power chords and distortion and stuff. A la (generally speaking) his other big influence Johnny Marr, whose occasional African-isms were, as far as I've read, totally incidental (that is, "This Charming Man," as "African" as it sounds, was written before Johnny Marr had much of any idea about African music at all).

I could be wrong, though, maybe Ezra is like some Awesome Tapes from Africa savant or something. Obviously some of it, via Paul Simon or no, was totally intentional, I just don't know how specific.

Most classics have flaws, though, including the first three VW albums

I don't think anyone especially wanted to sound like West African music because it was West African, but they gravitated to the sounds of West African music more than South African. Although a song like White Sky does seem like a Graceland rip to me.

“It’s very meaningful to me, and it always hurt my feelings when people would say that Vampire Weekend’s lyrics were nonsense. They’re not nonsense. They’re impressionistic."

"I’ve always been mildly offended when people would say Vampire Weekend lyrics are nonsense, because they mean something."

Who says their lyrics are meaningless? Was that a typical criticism? I would have thought it was fairly apparent that the lyrics are laden with all sorts of references and codes.

In re the African influences and the new album, it made sense to me when I realized "Rich Man" is built on an S.E. Rogie sample, because Rogie incorporated country music from the start (big Jimmie Rodgers fan). So a palm wine/countrypolitan album is a natural progression.