#Vampire weekend album full#

Batmanglij is Iranian American Koenig is of Hungarian-Jewish descent. That larger debate can be boiled down to the song title вЂњCape Cod Kwassa KwassaвЂќ (which references a Congolese dance style) and the cheeky Myspace genre tag вЂњUpper West Side SowetoвЂќ (which nods to both South Africa and Paul SimonвЂ™s vivid but not-uncontroversial reimagination of South Africa). вЂњEven you could beat up these guys,вЂќ Vulture quipped in a piece headlined вЂњWhat to Expect From the Upcoming Vampire Weekend Backlash.вЂќ Koenig and the boys would be on Saturday Night Live by the spring.Д®ven by contemporary blog-hype standards, it was a meteoric rise with a deliriously rich culture-war subtext: one of the last major indie bands kicking up a major extended rock-critic argument. And when their self-titled debut finally materialized in January 2008, it earned a rave Pitchfork review from Abebe himself.

#Vampire weekend album full#

Vampire Weekend were interviewed for a Spin cover story (written by Ringer podcaster Andy Greenwald) before they even had a full album out-a first for the magazine. As 2007 rolled on, Rolling Stone interviewed them for the magazineвЂ™s Hot Issue, while The New York Times caught a modest show at a Williamsburg art gallery and enthusiastically pointed readers to the bandвЂ™s Myspace page. This would raise quite a ruckus this would make them famous. вЂњJust nothing cool about it.вЂќД«ut really, Vampire Weekend took everything from highlife guitars to collegiate lust to Lil Jon worship to a crisp polo shirt and made it theirs. вЂњI mean, for us, that was like the music that your dad got real into after your parents divorced,вЂќ recalls Chicago author and critic Jessica Hopper, summing up the initial, far more skeptical attitude outside the bandвЂ™s East Coast stronghold. Rock critics evoked Paul SimonвЂ™s Graceland instinctively, as is our wont, though not everyone took this as an enthusiastic recommendation. It sounded as flamboyantly preppy as the band-then singer-guitarist Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, bassist Chris Baio, and drummer Chris Tomson-looked. Each new tune sounded like a demo but felt suspiciously complete: the prim Afro-pop filigrees, the Ivy League erudition, the wise-ass hyper-melodiousness. Soon, a blue CD-R full of spare indie-pop songs with provocatively fussy names like вЂњOxford CommaвЂќ and вЂњCape Cod Kwassa KwassaвЂќ was roiling MP3 blogs. I was like, вЂThat actually looks really cool and interesting in a surprising way. The subway guy was Vampire Weekend front man Ezra Koenig, and Abebe noticed something else immediately: вЂњHe was making boat shoes and a polo shirt look really good, in a way that they hadnвЂ™t to me previously.

вЂњI was so curious about what sort of Columbia-kid band would be working with Nasty Little Man that I was sitting next to, I think, his girlfriend at the time,вЂќ Abebe continues, вЂњand I had to kind of lean over and ask, вЂWhat band is this?вЂ™ She said, вЂOh, theyвЂ™re called Vampire Weekend. WeвЂ™re sort of talking to them.вЂ™вЂќДЄbebe is a rock critic and editor who wrote primarily for Pitchfork at the time Nasty Little Man is a major PR firm.

вЂњI was living up around Columbia at the time,вЂќ he recalls, вЂњand I was just riding the subway home and overheard this young guy talking to somebody about, like, вЂShould our band work with Nasty Little Man? I donвЂ™t know. Nitsuh Abebe first heard the eraвЂ™s biggest and most ridiculous band name of them all on the train, sometime in early 2007, somewhere on the Upper West Side. But when it worked, the results were both exhilarating and bewildering. Then you just waited for a few idle words to perk up the right ears and light up the right blogs. In the mid-2000s all it took to be the next white-hot indie band was a few insidiously catchy tunes, a clandestine industry connection or two, a content-generating backstory and/or fashion sense, an era-appropriate bashful sort of cockiness, and a patently ridiculous name.