Vampire Weekend albums : Pauline Young !

Haven't had the new one anywhere near long enough to vote, really; at this point, I'm just not feeling it the way so many others seem to be. If I were to vote write now it'd be for Contra, I think, which has all I liked about the debut plus a bit more depth and, to my mind, better songs.

I've listened to the latest one A LOT since it's release (and have stopped for a few days now) so I think I'm ready to consider it in the general context of their work.
I really like it but it's almost like a product from a different period compared to the others.
"Contra" is very good but I like it a bit less than the first one.
The things I enjoy the most with this band are the lightness and chamber music/afro-caribbean arrangements so that makes sense, I guess.
But then, their best song for me might be "Ya Hey", so...

The first one is very good, but very frontloaded. So it's between the two others for me.

hum. VW is a bit frontloaded... but the 3 last tracks are also killer : "I stand corrected", "Walcott" and especially "the kids don't stand a chance" which is one of their best for me.

Contra
Modern Vampires
s/t

I find Contra to be quite better than the s/t.

I like approx 2-3 songs from each and can take or leave the rest.

alfred otm

Modern Vampires is the first VW I actively care about. That said they're still far from making an album I enjoy 100%.

Single wise, though, the order for me would be: VW > MVMC >> Contra.

Modern Vampires seemed like a huge leap forward to me.

The songs on MVMC are overall better than those on the previous albums but there's a lack of those immediate, upbeat singles the other two had. The album could benefit from having some sort of song like Oxford Comma tucked somewhere in between.

I do love Step and Ya Hey as singles but they seem too safe and downbeat to make any fuzz amongst new listeners. Also they seem to have already exhausted all the songs with single-potential (maybe Hannah Hunt? But, that one's also downbeat) whereas in the first album almost half of the songs had mass appeal. I think they released like five singles off it? And they could still pick more if they wanted to. In the end, VW are a pop band so most people will rate their albums based on the successful singles you can extract from them.

I think the perfect balance for them would be something in mood 3/4 MVC and 1/4 VW or Contra. But, hey, if they want to keep on risking and expanding into newer territory I don't mind at all.

I prefer the downbeat stuff i guess. Diane Young could be a single, no? Wasn't it one?

don't know the new one yet enough to vote for that. however, i totally love the other two. i'm going for the debut just because it is so much fun to listen to.

Love all three, but Contra has the edge by virtue of the expansiveness in the arrangements, the songs build very cleanly and logically to these quite emotional crescendoes, e.g:

- the offbeat "hey!" chant through the later choruses of "White Sky"
- the instrumental dancehall section of "Run" looping back into the dazzling guitar
- the massive driving drums leading into the final choruses of "Giving Up The Gun"
- the gargantuan extent of "Diplomat's Son" in all its parts.

-- Tracey Thorn revealing the quiet gritted-teeth melancholy of "Taxi Cab."

Totally.

super impressed by the production on the new one, bravo rostam and ariel. also "hannah hunt" still gives me all of the feels. so MVOTC.

yeah, the first one has the most charm and fun.
MVOTC is brilliant at places but it's very frontloaded.
some are fun but none of the tracks after "hannah hunt" are great (except "ya hey", of course). so that's half the album !
one the first album, the only track I don't really like is "Bryn".

Contra is weaker than the other two but I've not quite worked out which of the other two I prefer yet.

- the offbeat "hey!" chant through the later choruses of "White Sky"

Yes! I find it's not so much Vampire Weekend's songs or their overall sound that makes me like them, more little moments like this. Off the new one so far I noticed I like the high-register vocal that comes in every so often on the chorus, showcased splendidly at one point in the breakdown. There was another one (forget the song) where they do a neat pitch-shifting effect that's at once noticeable but incredibly subtle in the mix.

got 2 be the debut

tim and alfred precisely identify why contra is still my favorite but i think maybe in like a year modern vampires would be my favorite

if "Everlasting Arms" and "Hannah Hunt" keep creeping up on me like that the album will be!

Maybe I'll warm up to the new one, but for me, it's been all downhill since the debut.

finger back is definitely one of their best songs yet

this record definitely confirms they're a major band and here to stay....contra is great but basically an elaboration on the first one, this one could've been an Our Love to Admire or First Impressions of Earth...

I dunno, I feel like there's not enough pep in their sound anymore. It's languorous without being sumptuous.

see the first one still sounds as thin as it did in 2008.

All I really can say about the third one was that I was super bored halfway through the third song and turned it off.

Contra > S/T, but just barely; I like both of them a lot

new one pretty easily

alfred still speaking for me, the debut is too thin and the preppy schtick is embarrassing.

It's concise and lousy with hooks.

^^^^

Contra is weaker than the other two but I've not quite worked out which of the other two I prefer yet.

― Matt DC, Thursday, June 20, 2013 5:27 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This, but I'm leaning toward VW.

Modern Vampires has worn a bit thin for me at this point.

Contra - for being so diverse and so ingenious production and sound wise. First one is/was fun but an EP would have been enough, last one seems a bit too much like a grand statement.

Had no idea people liked Contra so much. Doesn't feel as warm as the debut, which I really enjoy the simple charm of, although it does sound great. I love the new one also, so this is very difficult. I just don't think I've had enough time to let the new one settle to pick it, so I'll go with VW.

The other important point to consider: Koenig's hair and choice of jeans immeasurably improved between the s/t and Contra, so don't imagine the improved song craft on the latter is a coincidence.

Can I ask this - Why are Vampire Weekend the twee schmindie-pop band it's okay to like? I'm seeing a lot of ilxors I'd otherwise be surprised to see on a thread like this ITT.

They write good songs.

They are good. Why would it not be okay to like a twee schmindie-pop band if they were good?

and they're not twee at all – anymore.

I like this word "schmindie."

Alfred, you always talk so much about Ezra but I'm all about their drummer.

He's not bad but he looks like he stinks of oats.

i went back and listened to the first two albums yesterday and they are closer in quality than i remember - mainly i think i was overrating contra a little in my memory. also contra had way more afropop stuff in it than i remembered, i thought they had shed that after the debut but nope.

I will say drummer > Ezra > Rostam >>>> bassist

"I Stand Corrected" is my jam from the first album. I don't think I can hear "Oxford Comma" again tbh

The singles from the first album are p much unimpeachable to me

Vampire Weekend are not your average schmindie rock band. They're more intelligent than most of them. They write better lyrics, better hooks and they actually know what they're doing. Also they're actual nerds, not just pretending to be ones to fit in their sort of genre. The genre picked them not the other way around. They're not perfect but they're way smarter and sincere than most of what's being sold as 'indie' nowadays.

voted contra but it's hard to pick one. all 3 are great. i hope they move way back into the african influences for the 4th album.

I don't think I can hear "Oxford Comma" again tbh

ha, when I put Contra above S/T is was specifically because of "Oxford Comma"

it'll be a fun tracks poll when their discography is a little larger

do the two chris's write their own parts?

It's a common misnomer that ILX's pop / dance / rap / r&b etc. contingent don't listen to much indie rock.

do the two chris's write their own parts?

not on the evidence of this album, where Koenig and Rostam claim music and lyrics.

VW (6) > MVC (5) > Contra (3)

In parentheses is how many songs I would pick from each one if I was making a VW mixtape.

sounds like they did more in the past but the new album was recorded differently with E+R holing up in the studio then calling in the rhythm section to replace programmed parts in the eleventh hour

do i sense a rift growing.....?

Typically in this type of band the riff would be between the two creative forces, rather than those forces in combination against the supporting actors.

lol @ "riff" - "rift" obviously.

VW (6) > MVC (5) > Contra (3)

In parentheses is how many songs I would pick from each one if I was making a VW mixtape.

― o. nate

This is pretty much my exact number of songs I would pick off of each for a mixtape. Oddly enough, even if I picked less songs off it than the debut, I still think MVC is the best one

I wd not have expected rev to like the drummer Better Than Ezra...

ha!

Koenig isn't even credited with guitar this time.

really!

He's credited with piano on "Unbelievers" but otherwise Rostam played all the melody parts, according to the credits.

He writes a lot of the lyrics, too

xp to Drugs, lol

Vampire Weekend are not your average schmindie rock band. They're more intelligent than most of them. They write better lyrics, better hooks and they actually know what they're doing. Also they're actual nerds, not just pretending to be ones to fit in their sort of genre. The genre picked them not the other way around. They're not perfect but they're way smarter and sincere than most of what's being sold as 'indie' nowadays.

Hey Moka, I generally agree with your posts but I find this a really unsatisfactory answer. It implies that most indie rock bands are unintelligent, that they're somehow pretentious or trying to do something that they don't want to do simply because they think they should.

Tim, maybe the ILM dance contingent listens to plenty of indie rock but this is one of the few times I've seen people like you, rev, Matt dc etc as a group getting enthusiastic for such a band, and I'm just a bit surprised and confused.

It's not that I don't think it's a good thing or that people shouldn't listen to vw. It's more that, throughout ilm's history there's often been an (almost violent) reaction towards many factors which I perceive VW to represent.

I've spent years (until recently - I've given up now) defending Animal Collective on ILM against those who found them childish, schmindyish, namby pamby, pretentious, and yet I always heard VW as the lightweight, less challenging, more 'culturally appropriative', more 'privileged' (if you will) and more derivative version of AC. I like them a fair bit but whenever I hear them I also hear all the same accusations that get thrown at so many other post-90s US indie/alt acts out there, ones that I feel are tarred rather unfairly IMO. I was very surprised when Contra got to number 4 in the ILM EOY list of that year. IIRC, we'd had pages and pages and pages of people moaning about Grizzly Bear and AC and Dirty Projectors and then these guys, who are maybe mildly more catchy than those bands but ultimately a similar take on the same thing.

I don't think VW are that much more exciting or interesting or more smart or more sincere than any multitude of bands whom the general non-indie contingent would otherwise ignore or at worse sneer at. This is why I'm puzzled.

Again it's not because I think VW aren't worth the effort, they're an okay band, but why these guys?

How are they derivative of Ac?

Polyrhythms, yelping, you know the score

To explain, no they're not the same but when I heard the first VW I remember thinking, well this is a more accessible version of sung tongs (maybe I'm answering my own question in that snap judgement). But I'd never have guessed that ILM would take to them in this way; at least no more than any other similar act of that type.

The way Animal Collective records are mixed makes me physically sick.

childish, schmindyish, namby pamby, pretentious

Like these aren't any of my problems with AC so much as they are more physically uncomfortable for me to listen to moreso than any other music I've heard.

Believe me mate, the last few have been horrible to listen to, I agree. I don't necessarily want to draw too many parallels between AC and VW, rather than the overall NYC/hipster indie axis.

The most recent anco album is great, actually.

Rev otm

i listen to a lot of indie rock/pop and i still think vampire weekend is a special band, better than the majority of other bands in the genre. dog latin, i think part of the problem you might be having with how people rate VW over some of the bands you like more is that you're putting them in the wrong context. animal collective, dirty projectors, and grizzly bear, while all "indie rock" in a loose sense, all have a subtext of experimentation - they all have abrasive elements, "weird" elements, that they emphasize. it's not hard to get why people have trouble with AC's production style or dave longstreth's singing or all of GB's slow dense songs. VW goes down a lot more smoothly, and they're gradually getting smoother - they're a pop band, albeit with some burgeoning experimental aspects in the production and arrangements, but still very much a pop band. that subtext of experimentation in those other bands makes them appear pretentious in a way that inspires vitriol; VW is pretentious in their own way but it seems like even the people who dislike them have trouble getting too worked up about it. so basically i disagree that they are "ultimately a take on a similar thing" (in fact, i'm not even sure how AC, DP, and GB are a "similar thing").

Yeah, if anything I think dl is asking the wrong question, which should be: what are VW doing that attracts a broader audience than the usual indie listeners?

The way Animal Collective records are mixed makes me physically sick.

haha

(I don't really have a strong opinion on AC, I just think that's funny and can relate to having strong negagive reactions to certain music.)

Vampire Weekend are way more literate than any of those bands, for one. There's an Orange Juice quality there entirely absent from the others.

I totally don't get the negative physical reaction to music thing; I never have it. It seems to be referred to on ilx a lot though.

i feel that way about the work of Odd Future (esp. Tyler and Earl) and Eminem. i think this was initially caused by being put off by lyrical subject matter, but now i just associate the sounds of those artists' voices with nausea and hatred.

i am interested in what you mean by "more literate" though. like, do you think VW's lyrics are better than those other bands? i think that might be true, although I like some of anco's lyrics which in general are inconsistent, but i don't think that is why people prefer them to those other faux naif polyrhythmic indie acts.

vw don't seem particularly naify to me, faux or otherwise

good point. i was just trying to describe the criteria by which they are considered part of the same cultural movement as animal collective and grizzly bear.

they are unapologetically youthful though, and there is an exuberance there -- an almost defiant lack of melancholy -- that is tonally similar to animal collective. maybe.

AnCo are at their best when they give in to their noise-impulses, but it's always sorta there. It is a bit weird that anyone would consider them a great pop-band, though they are a great band.

VW's lyrics are so many levels above the others. They have those intricate long lines, which often are just stunning. Like in Cousins: Dad was a risktaker / his was a shoemaker / You greatest hits 2006 little list-maker / heard codes in the melodies / you heeded the call / you were born with ten fingers and you're gonna us them all' Or the one in the bridge in Holiday about the MIA concert, or the one in White Sky with the thousand little Julias.

i am interested in what you mean by "more literate" though. like, do you think VW's lyrics are better than those other bands?

Yes, but their music and arrangements are literate too, if that makes sense: the density with which keyboard exotica, stabs of dub bass, drums, and the harmonies are packed. VW matter to me most as a musical experience.

Frederik B gets at what I meant exactly. Also little observational touches like "You said 'baby, we don't speak of that'/Like a real aristocrat".

Animal Collective are never observational, their entire m.o. is a kind of cut-through of the distance b/w the singer and the listener and the third persons that make observation possible. So their most powerful moments are ones like "Banshee Beat" giving way to mewling, or the loping reverie of "What Would I Want? Sky", or the total collapse into oblivion on "Safer". or the sudden accumulations of sensation on "It's You".

I feel like the only way you can really see these bands as striving for the same thing is to see them as essential caricatures of themselves.

I guess I never really took too much notice of the lyrics with either band - especially AC who I find largely unintelligible anyway.

I thought the lyric in "Diane Young" was "You toss a salad like a pile of leaves" instead of "You torched a Saab like a pile of leaves." Either way, awesome.

xpost with Vampire Weekend the lyrics are a good deal of the point!

yeah, that first line from "Diane Young" is great !
Usually I don't care much about lyrics in english but for some VW songs, they are part of the appeal, indeed.

I like that "salad" version of the line. it has a Kels touch...
Vampire Weekend Feat. R-Kelly would be interesting ! (especially since one thing that's pretty much absent in VW lyrics is the sexual/sensual aspect)

I think Ezra sometimes sings 'Do you want to fuck / like you know I do' live.

Had to find that Julia verse. It goes like this A little stairway / a little piece of carpet / a pair of mirrors that are facing one another / Out in both directions / a thousand little Julias / that come together in the middle of Manhattan' I love that line, it's so sweet.

"I took your counsel and came to ruin" has the formality of verse (I wish "came to ruin" hadn't disappeared from conversation)

^^^ all great lines

That 'a thousand little Julias' line is great - comes from one of my very favourite songs by VW although I have to admit I never really processed those lyrics in any literal way. Good to see them written down. Think I might finally be coming round to this band properly after having written them off as 'vaguely pleasant but slightly nauseating version of Animal Collective for preps who prefer Paul Simon to the Boredoms', haha.

and the new album's helping to dispel that preconception, I must say.

contra easy

I like how sonically appealing Vampire Weekend lyrics are, almost regardless of their meaning. My six-year-old's obsessed with singing the first verse of Step, just for the pleasure of the rhymes and melody. I got a real shock of pleasure from the very first VW song I heard - Oxford Comma - and I'm not sure I have any sophisticated point to make about that quality, beyond saying that being simultaneously super-clever and super-fun is hard.

Love this couplet so much:

I can still see them there huddled on Astor
Snow falling slow to the sound of the master

n/a OTM

To my mind, VW have distinguished themselves from other indie acts by allowing themselves to dissociate their song-writing and recording-process from the prerogative of live performance and/or exhibition of musical ability. Which isn't to say they're not a good live band. They're OK. But AC and DP and GB and so on, a big chunk of indiewelt, from the moment of a song's conception, seem to work with "playing this song at a rock festival" as an end-goal in mind. Everyone in those bands is a singer or a guitarist or a drummer with something to prove. But VW are writing a song for your living space.

interesting.

I also like the two lines preceding the Astor/master couplet: and punks who would laugh when they saw us together / well they didn't know how to dress for the weather' Really, I've just spend the last half hour reading their liner notes. So many good quotes. From Everlasting Arms: I hummed the Dies Irae while you played the Hallelujah

(promo)I wrote a blogpost on the discrepancy between the lyrics and the music on Contra a few years back. It's not that good, my english is wonky, and it uses the same examples as I've posted upthread, but if you want to take a look.(/promo)

Wait! Grizzly bear, anco and, dirty projectors werent the sort of bands I was dissing and if that's not my idea of 'average' indie bands at all. If anything those are the sort of bands which make it exciting (even tho I only really care for anco from those three).

I was referring, rather, to all those run of the mill indie bands that proliferate thus decade and which lack any sort of personality. The sort of bands that make it into those 'birp' blog compilations and of which noone has written a word over here in ilxor.

Stupid autocorrect fucked some of my words in there... Hope its intelligible.

VW always make me feel like I'm watching a Whit Stilman movie. And there can never be enough of that

What have you done to me you lousy lot? I haven't stopped listening to this band - all three albums - since I joined this discussion. Never would have thought I'd appreciate them much further than "meh, I guess some of the songs are alright", but here I am and it's all I want to listen to this week.

What is the reggae/dub track sampled for the drum beat on Obvious Bicycle? Definitely recognise it. There's another parallel between these and AC - Panda Bear sampled King Tubby's 'A Rougher Version' for one of the tracks on Tomboy in a very similar way.

VW always make me feel like I'm watching a Whit Stilman movie. And there can never be enough of that

well, I must say that also I find it a bit simplistic, the idea brought up by many reviews regarding the proximity between VW and Wes Anderson kinda makes sense. especially on the first album.

The comparison to Anderson insults VW.

eheh, I like them both !
But I totally agree that the links are very flimsy and the reference is mostly due to lazy journalism !

Not really seeing the Wes Anderson comparison (thank god!) - but re. Whit Stillman, for me most VW songs (either the joyful campus ones or the lost-hearts-in-the-city ones) are pure "Metropolitan"

VW and Wes Anderson's main similarity is the font.

there's also the chamber music touch !
that's why I hear it a little on the first album on which there are more that kind of arrangements.

and Wes Anderson could have directed this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g

that said, I don't want to be the one defending that comparison since I have always found it annoying !

i like the video. the landscape looks like central pennsylvania.

Can't listen to Diane Young and Worship You without drumming along.

Never listened to them before but I really like this record.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

surprised by the results as contra's songs seem slighter and less memorable to me than the songs on the other two. maybe i just haven't spent enough time with it.

The last 2 albums have been a bit of a disappointment for me, just a bit too low key or something. I really want to like them, but they just haven't clicked.

I think I liked them better when they sounded like Sublime.

I never really enjoyed Contra as a whole

I think you're a contra.

contra's the weakest of the three to me but i think i understand the love it gets.

yeah, i agree with that

Found a neon green post-it on the floor next to the computer with my 6 year old's best printing:
VAMPIRE
WEEK
END

Contra's got 'Horchata', 'Diplomat's Son' and especially 'White Sky' but I'm really liking the new one too. P much 180'd on this band in the last few weeks, I think they're great

neither "Diplo's Son" or "White Sky" made any impression on me

neither "Diplo's Son" or "White Sky" made any impression on me

― The Reverend, Monday, July 1, 2013 12:33 AM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol @ "Diplo's Son"

contra probably my least favourite of the three. an album that kicks off with a song as bad as "horchata" was never going to sit too well with me.

not boring enough?

naw, "Horchata" is awesome

best song on contra for me

loathed it as a single, made sense as an opener

was it ever an actual single or was it just the first thing that leaked? i thought the first single from contra was 'cousins' w/ 'giving up the gun' and (maybe?) 'holiday' as the followups. what's the highest profile vampire weekend track? 'holiday' was tied into that ad campaign but 'a-punk' was used in a ton of stuff.

i'd say their most well known track is either "a-punk" or "oxford comma"

highest charter on hot 100 is 'horchata' (go figure, i guess that answers that question), highest charter on alternative songs chart (which is what the modern rock chart is called now and i think probably is a better indicator of wider popularity/impact in this case) is 'diane young' (11), w/ 'cousins' (18) and 'a-punk' (25) behind it. biggest charters in uk are 'oxford comma' and 'cousins' barely behind it.

yeah i was gonna say cousins seemed like their biggest at the time

"a-punk" has nearly 23 million views on youtube, "cousins" 10.6m, "oxford comma" 8.6m, "giving up the gun" just under 8m.

if you combine the views for the burning car lyric video and the last supper official clip, "diane young" has a little over 4m so far.

Probably slightly distorted by the fact that (my sense is) the "A-Punk" video clip received the heaviest promotional push of any of them, by far.

That said I feel like it's their biggest as well.

"Contra" is also my least favourite. I don't think it adds much to the first one besides some arrangements/productions ideas (that are not necessarily essential), with some very good songs but overall, it's a bit undercooked, weaker and not as tight.

funny story : yesterday I was driving around and at some point, there was a nice convertible saab in front of me so the opening lyrics to "Diane young" came to my mind and at that exact moment, the song played on the radio !

ome very good songs but overall, it's a bit undercooked, weaker and not as tight.

precisely how I regard the first album

sure. i think i like the amateurism of the first album better than contra's redux of the same themes. and there are parts on contra where rostam just gets a little too crazy for my taste.

I thought the new one would walk it. They played half of it at Glastonbury (Unbelievers, Diane, Step, Ya Hey, Everlasting, Hannah) and the crowd reaction wasn't as strong but the songwriting made the earlier stuff look fun but callow.

I think Contra completely slays the first album - to me it is a very different thing than the s/t one. No way they could have done "Diplo son" and "White Taxi" at the time of their debut.

i really don't understand the fascination with diplo son--my only reaction to it ever has been "how is this still going"

that's how i feel about "I Think Ur a Contra."

The melody and hook of "Diplomat's Son" are indelible imo. I love the decision to speed up through the verse informing us that the narrator and the diplomat's son were briefly lovers.

wow never got that

which song do you mean when you say "white taxi"?

i'm going to assume "taxi cab" because "white sky" was actually written before the first LP came out

the latter actually - really? wow I stand correcetd then

haha, nice pun

funny because "white sky" is the track that sounds the most like the first album !

(and it's one of my favourites from "Contra" because of that)

Contra? Really? It's not bad or anything but I would rate it as the weakest of the three albums.

you can easily make the case for any of the three- sign of a great band!