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Last summer my buddy Rob kept bugging me about a new New York band called Vampire Weekend. I was horrified to discover that damn near every trend-o-blog on the planet was yapping about these guys; I have a pretty low tolerance for overhyped New York bands nowadays, and I think I gave one of their songs about 30 seconds and decided "this is way too precious" and filed them in the suck column and forgot about 'em.
Now that the first Vampire Weekend CD has gotten proper, non-bootlegged release the hype (and resulting backlash) have only gotten louder; these guys made the cover of SPIN before the disc even came out, and you can expect to hear their songs all over hipster commercials and crap in the coming year. Again, having found nothing worthwhile in other overhyped bands like this, I basically just tried to ignore the band. Until last week, I couldn't have picked a Vampire Weekend song out of a lineup.
That changed though last week; walking home from a poker party at a buddy's in the wee hours of a balmy spring night with the satellite radio thing going, I heard the VW song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and something about the circumstances and lack of expectations got to me; without knowing what song I was listening to, I found myself utterly captivated. I got home, found my copy of the disc that I'd discarded after 30 seconds, and realized after two spins that this was a disc every bit worthy of the tons of hype piled upon it; the debut Vampire Weeked CD might be the best disc I've heard all year.
No one bothered to explain to me what their modus operandi was, and that's what upset my original expectations, so I'll try to do that for y'all if you ain't already heard them. Vampire Weekend is 4 recent college grads from NYC who have combined Paul Simon's "Graceland" influence with some other Afro-beat stuff to the soundtracks Mark Mothersbaugh does to Wes Anderson movies with a little indie rock coolness thrown in. You'll hear bits of calypso, reggae, and ska brushing shoulders with strings, mellotrons, and harpsichords. Even off that description, this sounds too smart and too smug for its own good, and the miracle of this group is that this isn't the case--the disc is the most engaging, happy, pull-you-in record I've heard in a while.
Here's the video for their song "A-Punk". Irresistible:
...and their first video, "Mansard Roof"
Now that the first Vampire Weekend CD has gotten proper, non-bootlegged release the hype (and resulting backlash) have only gotten louder; these guys made the cover of SPIN before the disc even came out, and you can expect to hear their songs all over hipster commercials and crap in the coming year. Again, having found nothing worthwhile in other overhyped bands like this, I basically just tried to ignore the band. Until last week, I couldn't have picked a Vampire Weekend song out of a lineup.
That changed though last week; walking home from a poker party at a buddy's in the wee hours of a balmy spring night with the satellite radio thing going, I heard the VW song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and something about the circumstances and lack of expectations got to me; without knowing what song I was listening to, I found myself utterly captivated. I got home, found my copy of the disc that I'd discarded after 30 seconds, and realized after two spins that this was a disc every bit worthy of the tons of hype piled upon it; the debut Vampire Weeked CD might be the best disc I've heard all year.
No one bothered to explain to me what their modus operandi was, and that's what upset my original expectations, so I'll try to do that for y'all if you ain't already heard them. Vampire Weekend is 4 recent college grads from NYC who have combined Paul Simon's "Graceland" influence with some other Afro-beat stuff to the soundtracks Mark Mothersbaugh does to Wes Anderson movies with a little indie rock coolness thrown in. You'll hear bits of calypso, reggae, and ska brushing shoulders with strings, mellotrons, and harpsichords. Even off that description, this sounds too smart and too smug for its own good, and the miracle of this group is that this isn't the case--the disc is the most engaging, happy, pull-you-in record I've heard in a while.
Here's the video for their song "A-Punk". Irresistible:
...and their first video, "Mansard Roof"
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