I hate Vampire Weekend.
I really do. Like, really really. Reading about them causes my blood pressure to rise and redness to well up in my face. Whenever I hear someone talk about how good their debut is, I want to roll my eyes and snort. And don't even ask me about seeing their smug pictures in some music magazine or whatever.
What is the source of this ire, I wonder. Their music isn't tremendously bad. It's kind of catchy and good. I've even sung "A-Punk" to myself a handful of times. The fawning, though, irritates me. People acting like their debut is something fantastic and new, when all it does is sound like Paul Simon's "Graceland," written by worse songwriters, played by worse musicians, and sung by a worse singer. And fuck it! Islands were doing exactly that back in 2006.
It also irritates me that you can't read two words about them without hearing that they formed at Columbia*. And that they went to prep schools and were born in the hand of wealth. It ticks me off that they have a song called "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" that references the United Colors of Benneton and Louis Vuitton and claims "this feels so unnatural; Peter Gabriel, too." Well, if it feels so fucking Peter Gabriel, stop playing afro-pop that talks about preppy white kid clothes. And hell, the lead singer's name is Ezra Koenig. EZRA Koenig. Doesn't that just scream, "hey, I'm the son of an english professor who wears tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows!"
Yeah, I know. I'm just hating. And there's a twinge of jealousy, too; I graduated from prep schools! And I went to an Ivy League college! Why aren't I playing in some highly acclaimed band that people are fawning over? But mostly, it's straight-up, good-ol'-fashioned indie backlash. I can't wait until they put out their second album and everyone talks about how bad it is. Congratulations, Vampire Weekend: you're the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
*-by the way, ever heard of Menomena? They actually have a really cool and original sound, partially due to their composition technique of a) playing snippets of sound into a recording device coupled with a piece of software they wrote, b) looping those bits of sound in the piece of software, and c) learning how to play the resulting compositions. And the guy who developed that software is a Dartmouth alum (Brett Knopf '00, in case you're interested). So why do we never hear about that connection? Because he's freaking modest about it, that's why.
What is the source of this ire, I wonder. Their music isn't tremendously bad. It's kind of catchy and good. I've even sung "A-Punk" to myself a handful of times. The fawning, though, irritates me. People acting like their debut is something fantastic and new, when all it does is sound like Paul Simon's "Graceland," written by worse songwriters, played by worse musicians, and sung by a worse singer. And fuck it! Islands were doing exactly that back in 2006.
It also irritates me that you can't read two words about them without hearing that they formed at Columbia*. And that they went to prep schools and were born in the hand of wealth. It ticks me off that they have a song called "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" that references the United Colors of Benneton and Louis Vuitton and claims "this feels so unnatural; Peter Gabriel, too." Well, if it feels so fucking Peter Gabriel, stop playing afro-pop that talks about preppy white kid clothes. And hell, the lead singer's name is Ezra Koenig. EZRA Koenig. Doesn't that just scream, "hey, I'm the son of an english professor who wears tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows!"
Yeah, I know. I'm just hating. And there's a twinge of jealousy, too; I graduated from prep schools! And I went to an Ivy League college! Why aren't I playing in some highly acclaimed band that people are fawning over? But mostly, it's straight-up, good-ol'-fashioned indie backlash. I can't wait until they put out their second album and everyone talks about how bad it is. Congratulations, Vampire Weekend: you're the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
*-by the way, ever heard of Menomena? They actually have a really cool and original sound, partially due to their composition technique of a) playing snippets of sound into a recording device coupled with a piece of software they wrote, b) looping those bits of sound in the piece of software, and c) learning how to play the resulting compositions. And the guy who developed that software is a Dartmouth alum (Brett Knopf '00, in case you're interested). So why do we never hear about that connection? Because he's freaking modest about it, that's why.