Vampire *fucking* Weekend

[CHAOTROPIC]

I dunno ... maybe the problem is that if you called them "really quite good", I think they'd be all smiley & happy & pleased. They're not aiming any higher. A band with that little ambition doesn't deserve a stage

 

[mms]

I dunno ... maybe the problem is that if you called them "really quite good", I think they'd be all smiley & happy & pleased. They're not aiming any higher. A band with that little ambition doesn't deserve a stage

what?
A band that makes good pop songs in an original quite easy way, shouldn't deserve a stage because their music is happy and pleased (read populist).

i love the rules people make around here for music - esp stuff they don't like because that just can't see things on their own merits.

 

[dHarry]

Music journo from Hot Press (Ireland's NME) on the radio the other day: "apparently they hate being compared to Paul Simon, but you can't deny the influence really, can you?". Apparently he'd never heard, or heard of, high life, or assumed that Paul Simon invented it or something? Disgrace(lands)ful.

 

[swears]

What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There’s a definite urge – don’t you have it? – to say, ‘The Indie community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.’ What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from Camden Town or Oxford, discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their musicians.

 

[mistersloane]

What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There’s a definite urge – don’t you have it? – to say, ‘The Indie community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.’ What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from Camden Town or Oxford, discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their musicians.

*murmurs of assent and coughs of 'here here' from the gods*

 

[sodiumnightlife]

to be honest i think there are people who deserve your hate a lot more. Given, I don't like Vampire Weekend much and think their assimilation of African influences is fairly crappy. However, at least they tried - all those crap bands that just like kinks-jam-libertines are much more loathsome.

 

[gumdrops]

gotta say i heard them in rough trade this morning and thought it was really good. i had read about them using some african influences and i thought it was gonna be some gimmicky contrived bollocks but its actually very well done.

 

[Mr. Tea]

What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There’s a definite urge – don’t you have it? – to say, ‘The Indie community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.’ What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from Camden Town or Oxford, discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their musicians.

Pfffft.

 

[Slothrop]

to be honest i think there are people who deserve your hate a lot more.

I agree, and more to the point, lots of them aren't in indie bands. This whole "I'm really angry that some people like music that I don't find interesting" thing reminds me, paradoxically, of teenage indie kids.

As regards the actual music, I found it reasonably diverting but it'd be a lot more interesting if they were a bit more loose / exciteable / fun and a bit less detached and Strokesy. The bits where they start to go a bit Animal Collective sound interesting but then they reign it in a bit and return to indie-chugalong. Maybe if they took more acid or something...

 

[Mr. Tea]

My God, The Strokes...now there's a blast from the recent-ish past. Weren't they just about the most overrated band ever? I mean, they weren't *awful* per se, it was the sheer gap between hype and actual musical merit/originality - people* were comparing them to the Stones and the Velvet Underground, for fuck's sake.


*well, ok, the NME

 

[CHAOTROPIC]

people* were comparing them to the Stones and the Velvet Underground, for fuck's sake.

I remember some NME pranny writing that "our generation" should feel "privileged to be host to a band of that magnitude", or something, & that in twenty years we'd look back with pride that we were "there at the beginning"

I think the reason for the gut-level disgust of Vampire Weekend is somewhere in the space between the (contentless, passionless, gimmicky, expressing-nothing) quality of the music, & their (apparently) wild acclaim. They're like a couple of hippies humming on a bus: it's all very nice & everything & they're probably enjoying themselves, but if people start claiming that it's 'the future of music', then 'music' better take a long, hard look at itself...

 

[spooky girlfriend]

"i am in love with this band!
they are intoxicating, i cant wait to get their cd!!!!"

SHIT AWFUL campfire rubbish. Mungo Jerry without the 'hit'. Why do they bother??

well two things are for sure, they're nothing new and they're definitely going to make more money than me. Can we have a revolution please? A proper second era of psychedelia perhaps? Maybe with some new ideas? Is such a thing even possible any more? *sigh*

The main thing that bothers me about this band, purely on an aesthetic level, is their chirpy, cardigan-wearing, pop influences-on-sleeve thing which seems to be really in right now. at least the Beatles used jazzy chord progressions and had lyrics about onions.

 

[mms]

My God, The Strokes...now there's a blast from the recent-ish past. Weren't they just about the most overrated band ever? I mean, they weren't *awful* per se, it was the sheer gap between hype and actual musical merit/originality - people* were comparing them to the Stones and the Velvet Underground, for fuck's sake.


*well, ok, the NME

they do tht with anyone with a half decent old fashioned tune. mix that with something a bit exotic but also sounding a bit like the smiths then you've won over the nme i'd reckon.


yeah the strokes, god yes very ordinary music from a previous decade for sure.

 

[CHAOTROPIC]

Can we have a revolution please? A proper second era of psychedelia perhaps?

Alright then, let's start one. I'm in!!

 

[swears]

Still haven't heard them!

 

[swears]

well two things are for sure, they're nothing new and they're definitely going to make more money than me. Can we have a revolution please? A proper second era of psychedelia perhaps? Maybe with some new ideas? Is such a thing even possible any more? *sigh*

Know how you feel, but I have made it my mission this year to get out and experience some good clubs and travel a bit. Actually see first hand what's going on. Fuck internerds, there is a whole world out there!

 

[frogger]

i enjoy the vampire weekend record. its fairly listenable the entire way through, although some tracks seem like filler to me...

sometimes i don't wish that they were edgier, rather, i just wish that same amount of attention to song structure, melody, harmony, energy and dynamics was in all of their songs rather than just the ones i like...

i like how they use string arrangements and vary the densities and timbres in certain tracks like mansard roof...

normally my listening tastes tend towards the avantgarde, the metallic and the electronic...but occasionally a pop record comes along that i listen to a lot and this is one of them...

interesting to read the dusted review vs the pitchfork review of this record...

 

[mistersloane]

It's just retro. Even Paul Simon wasn't retro - does anyone here know how he did Graceland live? - by all accounts it was just amazing, a marriage. Orange Juice were a contemporary group with a dual genius hub of Zeke Manyika and Collins as their hub. They took from South Africa as it was then. Great.

I'm not scared _ I was born before the ecstasy generation - it's OK to say you think something is crap, criticism is natural, don't hold it back...There being an idea that one should find better targets, that isn't what this thread is about, this thread is about them, and they're just retro.
Isn't it fucking nice these Africans made this pretty music.

Check Zhao's compilation, check my blog, fucking check Africa now, Vampire fucking Weekenders indeed. Fucking stupid fucking American tourists. Not doing anyone any favours. And it's FINE, it's FINE to do that, you can do that, it's OK to do that, but don't tell me it's contemporary, and don't tell me it's relevant. FINE if you like it. I don't. Bag of shite. Bring on psychedelia, and give Vampire Weekend an acid-tainted blood drip.

I wouldn't mind, but they think they're clever, and as such are viable targets.

 

[Sick Boy]

Vampire fucking Weekenders indeed

Wow, I can't believe I only noticed that now. CRINGE.

Almost as hilarious as the last scene of the music video for Kate Nash's "Foundations" where the last thing you see is a closing door with "Don't Fall For This" written on it. I sincerely hope this was the cathartic expression of all the poor bastards who had to produce that video... definitely one of my favourite music moments of 2007. It's almost a reward for sitting through that shit.

Vampire Weekend - hahaha

 

[swears]

I'm not scared _ I was born before the ecstasy generation - it's OK to say you think something is crap, criticism is natural, don't hold it back...

Yeah, what pisses me off is when a debate is brought down to the level of "ur jus a hater/fanboy" and going into all these reasons why other people are supposed to love or hate whatever being discussed (And their implied ignorance/misanthropy). Instead of going over the merits or otherwise of the music itself.