vampire weekend - only god was above us, out april 5, 2024

the fifth vampire weekend album is coming on april 5th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdpg-1mw7E0

tracklist:
01 “Ice Cream Piano”
02 “Classical”
03 “Capricorn”
04 “Connect”
05 “Prep-School Gangsters”
06 “The Surfer”
07 “Gen-X Cops”
08 “Mary Boone”
09 “Pravda”
10 “Hope”

With a title like that, you kind of have to involve DJ Khaled somehow, right?

Prep-School Gangsters

They only wish.

I'm glad Taylor Swift provided the titles.

Surprise! She also did all the music and everything. They're just faceless puppets now.

this is apparently a double-lp. vw's physical graffiti incoming??

A double LP of ten songs? I suppose they really ARE a jam band now.

So, who’s drumming and playing bass on this one?

Chris Tomson bringing some of that Taper's Choice jam energy back to his main gig?

lol xp Ned!

Jampire Weekend

Vampire Weekendless

the snippet of music in the trailer sounds cool

Listening to too much Dead (via Jake Longstreth of Time Crisis & Richard Pictures fame) and playing big festivals with an expanded band is a dangerous musical influence, but the last album was the first VW album I listened to more than once, so I'm looking forward to it.

they were pretty incredible on their last tour

I don't think you even need to fully blame Longstreth, considering that one of their very own has his own jam band with Dave Harrington and Alex Bleeker!

I didn't like the last album at all, but there's like a dozen and a half cuts from their first three albums that I still enjoy. Mixed together, they add up to a great little album.

re: it being a double lp - the tracks are arranged 3/3/3/1 so it may be that the last track is some sort of epic

note for note cover of dark star from venetta, oregon

But only if it has one of those fancy hologram things of naked pole guy. (iykyk)

Wasn't Vampire Weekend last album also a double as it had like 16 or 17 songs?

It was a double on vinyl because it was 58 minutes long and they didn't want to pull a Rundgren.

they did talk a bunch about how it was a 'double album' though which was a weird move when it was that short

like the idea of a 'double album' isn't very meaningful these days but if you're going to appeal to the classic concept of a double album at least make it 70+ minutes

It has 18 songs and great points ufo

We haven't gotten to the point in CD nostalgia were an artist will rhapsodize about making a classic CD Bloat-style LP (unless TayTay did & I missed it).

i want to say drake did but that might just be me misremembering conversations about streaming bloat albums

I loved that about De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising is like a perfect CD-length album, closing in on 70 minutes. I would never break it apart into four sides.

Last album was the album that sealed the deal for me whereas previously I'd regarded them with an air of "I kind of like this but I'm not sure I want to like it?", so hopefully this will be decent.

Ummm... but do I recall there was some chat a while ago about Ezra being into some dodginess? What became of that?

https://www.rookiemag.com/2016/09/the-infinity-diaries/

there was also the article from her a few years ago detailing an abusive ex where some of the details lined up with ezra, some of them didn't really, and she made a point of not naming anyone. there haven't been any further developments so it's still that at best he's a creep who dates 18 year olds (and rostam is also terrible for enabling that) and at worst he's much much worse.

https://live.staticflickr.com/4032/4718435334_db1f7b8151_c.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lCmyFCj580

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW9Qk00693c

some great production tricks that deserve better songs? i feel completely unmoved despite the arrangements being full of interesting ideas

otm

capricorn feels like a retread, but i dug gen x cops

^^ otm

Ariel Reichstadt putting in work.

yeah they sound cool

So where did all the double album talk come from? Wikipedia has the full tracklist up and it's only 10 songs/47 minutes.

Double vinyl at 45 rpm

Ahhh, thanks.

That second chorus on Capricorn tho

Capricorn sounds like a song Ezra can write in his sleep - but yeah that second chorus is very cool

this one is pretty great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP2FbpYs4t0

i also have come fully around on "capricorn," good song

Koenig looks like early '80s Lindsay Buckingham in those closeups.

Reminds me of Los Panchos rendition of El Negro Zumbon. Which could made a good VW sample tbh

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

These new songs sound like Belle and Sebastian in a way that previous VW, to my ear, does not.

yeah i like this one more than the other two, songwriting feels like less of a re-tread and the arrangement is even better

It's painful to watch an upright bass being played like that

it's at #11 in the UK (and #4 in Scotland). surprised to see it bombing in the US.

i'm still extremely impressed by the production, it's a return to the brilliant creativity of contra. i just wish the tunes were as good but i'm coming around to the moodier, more suspended thing it's going for here

wonder if it bombing has anything to do with the billboard methodology changes around indie record stores or whatever it is?

the worst songs on this are "gen-x cops" and "hope". "capricorn" and "mary boone" are at least a much better & more interesting version of what they were doing on mvotc. "ice cream piano" is probably the best tune on the album but the least impressive arrangement? the arrangement is still good it's just not really impressing me with how novel it is like a lot of the others. i'm really coming around to the chaotic, jazzy, suspended feeling of "classical" and "connect"

the overall feeling of the album makes me think they've been listening to like, cornelius and 90s shibuya-kei stuff? "broken washing machine" especially

y'all know infinitely more about chart expectations and performance than i do, but do we think very many people really care about Vampire Weekend at this point? some New Yorkers, probably, and some aging Millennials, music critics and some stray Time Crisis / Grateful Dead fans, but otherwise, i don't know who we're expecting to push this album higher than ~#27. (and i love them, to be clear.)

fotb hit #1 and they were playing pretty big venues that tour still, even some arenas. it's quite a drop off

they still do have some arenas booked on their upcoming tour

wonder if it bombing has anything to do with the billboard methodology changes around indie record stores or whatever it is?

That certainly won't help their chart positions, but... if we're comparing apples to apples at the record store chain I work at, we sold around 1/3 the copies we sold of "Father of the Bride" first week. Big drop-off.

Seems to be happening to a lot of artists of (very roughly) their vintage? Last albums by MGMT, Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, Jack White, etc... all artists of a certain age, all headed to the "play the old songs for us" phase of their careers, it seems. It comes for the best (and worst) of us...

this one's quite a bit better than the most recent albums by any of those artists at least

maybe it's just a result of people losing interest after fotb

My album preferences after a dozen or so listens:

Modern Vampires
Contra
Only God
FOTB
s/t

i think it's simple. in order to sell 127k, you need a lot of normies to buy in. "harmony hall" and "this life" were crossover hits, getting some adult contempo and triple-a play, not just the regular alt-rock radio and xmu spins, while none of the singles from this gained any traction. that still matters at the tippy top of the charts.

hoping to score some day-of discounted tickets for one of the MSG shows in the fall

this one's quite a bit better than the most recent albums by any of those artists at least

I believe it. The reviews have been great for sure.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

VW monthly listeners on Spotify fairly anemic compared to what one might imagine. I have to order Cage the Elephant this week, so was looking them up, and they have double the monthly listeners that VW has. And that's after their last album stiffed (comparatively).

Had Billboard changed the rules about counting album/ticket bundling by 2019? If not, the handling of this for FOTB felt a little like cooking the books. I went with my best friend and her husband. When the tour went on sale, he bought the tickets, each of which were supposed to come with *1 COPY* of the album on either vinyl or CD (he chose CD). So we had three copies coming our way. Except they kept sending him follow-up emails about "Have you picked your albums yet? Please pick your albums!" and he replied every time until one day a box showed up at their apartment containing *12 COPIES* of FOTB on CD.

We kept three and flipped the rest.

lol

fotb is also a double album. do they still count each "sale" of a double album as two sales?

if you have a way to get around the paywall there's a billboard.com article from when FOTB went no 1 that answers a lot of these questions

https://www.billboard.com/pro/vampire-weekend-father-of-the-bride-no-1-billboard-200/

Of Father’s 138,000 unit start, its 119,000 in album sales were driven largely by sales generated from a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer for the act’s upcoming tour, which launches in June.

[...]

Father earned just 1,000 in TEA units and 18,000 in SEA units. The latter figure translates to 20.29 million on-demand audio streams for the set’s songs in its opening week — the biggest debut streaming week for a rock album in 2019.

That photo is not the Ezra whom I fell in love with.

even putting aside the ticket bundling thing, i think the arc makes sense if you think of album sales as being more so reflective of the public's opinion on the previous album. there was a lot of enthusiasm coming off of a critical/commercial peak in MVOTC that was reflected in the enthusiasm for FOTB, which is their most divisive album, hence them shedding some part of their audience w/ the subsequent album

it had also been five years, which in another era was a long time but in the streaming era, well.

Yeah. Release performance is more often than not a referendum on the previous release... and they have been away for a minute... and no single really connected... and the last one benefited from bundling (though the earlier releases that didn't also bested this record's performance, right?).

Whether the music is good or not aside, they do seem as if from a bygone era. Like, how much Hipster Runoff-core artists still remains at the center of the pop universe? Lana for sure. There are others I guess, but it has been a long time. Also, 27 is a heckuva lot better than not charting (which is the fate of MGMT, of montreal, etc).

too lazy to actually look into it but Lana's critical/commercial peak came after her/the HRO era, no?

for me, this is becoming their best material.

too lazy to actually look into it but Lana's critical/commercial peak came after her/the HRO era, no?

First album was HR-era for sure. Not after that though (I don't think).

Has John Lennon weighed in on this goofy band's goofy album title yet?

another 26 albums were also above them btw

— ﹌ (@cyphariana) April 16, 2024

Wait a second, are we saying that FOTB is a New Jersey?

man, ya'lls obsession with that nj shit is completely beyond me. not trying to start a fight with anyone or you nate (because you specifically are rad, don't change), but... anything to avoid discussing the actual music, i guess. these days, seems like someone inevitably brings it up re:any new release by an established act. i get the concept i just don't get why you're all so smitten with it. anyway. /vent

uhhh my man until I revived this thread we were discussing the music

170 posts worth

Not sure #11 in the UK is much to sing about. All the Twitter terfs got Roisin to #5 and this week The Libertines made #1

fotb is also a double album. do they still count each "sale" of a double album as two sales?

It -- like alot of newer albums -- was only a double on vinyl. Otoh, most of the sales probably *were* on vinyl, so...

I do feel that Billboard's chicanery probably screwed a little with the new. Most of the people willing to buy this band's stuff on physical are going to do it at an indie shop. On that tip, they might even be waiting until this weekend and RSD to buy it there.

the New Jersey thread remains one of my favorite ILM experiences ever. to each his own, i guess.

anyway, VW is coming to my podunk town to play an 8K-cap amphitheater and they are better than any of the other dozens of bands playing the venue this summer. whether the place will be full or a quarter full, i'm stoked.

In my head FOTB was underwhelming not because it was a hollow recitation of VW’s winning formula but because it mostly jettisoned various components of that formula, which components turned out to have been a crucial part of the band’s appeal - this is really underscored by how precisely my increased enjoyment of OGWAU correlates to the appearance of a course correction. But maybe I am idiosyncratic on this point and the surprising arrangements and flourishes aren’t that important to most VW fans?

because you specifically are rad, don't change

Right back at ya, Austin.

I gotta ask what does it even mean to be a “new jersey” I’m reading without knowing what that reference is.

Every huge artist has their "New Jersey" - a huge event album that ultimately feels a bit hollow & signals a career decline

Not sure #11 in the UK is much to sing about. All the Twitter terfs got Roisin to #5 and this week The Libertines made #1

― groovypanda, Wednesday, 17 April 2024 19:22 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i wasn't singling it out as a good thing. the previous three were all top three. the scotland chart intrigues me though as i feel releases by long established rock/indie/whatever acts almost always do better there(?), even if the actual sales numbers are probably small

In my head FOTB was underwhelming not because it was a hollow recitation of VW’s winning formula but because it mostly jettisoned various components of that formula, which components turned out to have been a crucial part of the band’s appeal - this is really underscored by how precisely my increased enjoyment of OGWAU correlates to the appearance of a course correction. But maybe I am idiosyncratic on this point and the surprising arrangements and flourishes aren’t that important to most VW fans?

FOTB not a New Jersey.

I resist coming back to this one (although I quite like most of the tunes) because of the clattery, compressed production. In particular the drums — I hate them. I hate the way they sound, and I hate the space they take up in the mix. They actively annoy me while I’m listening.

I think I’m v much in the minority on this.

You are, but not alone!

Having LOTS OF THINGS HAPPENING FAST on the drums does not equal "good beats."

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, April 5, 2024 3:16 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Perhaps inevitably from its grave debuting sales, it only lasted one week on either the US or UK charts. (Actually, I'd have expected at least a second week in the UK, at number 76 or something, but nah).

Only God Can Chart Us

Vampire Weakened

I dunno, they are playing 4 nights in London at 3-5000 capacity venues so I think there is still a solid audience for them (and two nights in Manchester) - I'm looking forward to it anyway...

They pretty much sold out two nights at MSG with over five months to go. Maybe they've already turned into a legacy act - no one buys the new stuff but they'll pay big for an arena show?

16 years since their debut album. For the stones it was basically Tattoo you (64-81). Yeah maybe they are legacy act for aged fans now !

Good episode of NYT Popcast hosted by Jon Pareles feat. Amanda Petrusich and Matthew Strauss

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/arts/music/popcast-vampire-weekend.html

without any evidence or argument to back up my position: my feeling is this would have performed better if they hadn't gone major

They did that a long time ago; I reckon over 90% of Vampire Weekend songs are in a major key