Christian and Jew do Vampire Weekend review
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Artist:
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Album:
Vampire Weekend have been called many insulting and unfair things in their brief career. I wished to continue the trend with my review of their new #1 album "Contra". Preferably with as many rude swears as possible.
However a passionate young man by the name of Ethan (or, if you prefer, MOG's TynansAnger) felt compelled to stop me. The Prefix music critic was born within a scone's throw of Columbia University on New York's Upper West Side -- that's right, Vampire Weekend's hood!
Find out what happened in the edited transcript of our IM convo below.
... but first, a dedication:
A Dedication
This edition of The Haters' Verdict is dedicated to the memory of Michael Landon, the son of a Jewish American actor and an Irish Catholic dancer, who famously played a Judeo-Christian angel on the hit 1980s tv show, Highway To Heaven. This one's for you, Michael.
Those People!
Flux: Hey, Ethan, you there? I'm ready when you are.
Ethan: I'm ready...
F: Before we start...are you in college?
E: I graduated a couple of years ago from the University of Chicago.
C: What was it like to leave the Upper West Side and decamp to Chicago? Did your butler come with you?
E: Hah! I was a professor's kid, but everyone else in the Upper West Side were lawyer's kids... I think my neighbourhood was where the term "those people" was invented.
F: I learned that reference on Mad Men.
E: I can't watch that show... I know it's good but I can't bring myself to watch a show about advertising.
F: The ad stuff is a smokescreen. It's actually about the women... very much. But tell me, what galls you about advertising?
E: I think the beer ads on TV now, where the guy chooses beer over his girlfriend/wife, are about the saddest things I've ever seen.
F: Ha ha!... How would you feel if Vampire Weekend gave some music to a Ralph Lauren ad (very likely)?
E: I would be interested in what XL's royalty structures were; if they needed the money, fine. But considering they're a #1 band now...
F: How has growing up in Jewish neighbourhood in the Upper West Side shaped you?
E: The fact that I was raised without any sense of how Christians live also probably excluded me from understanding a lot about the world.
F: Bush must have been terrifying.
E: Don't get me STARTED.
F: Heh heh.
E: ...Our parents raised 90s New York kids with an 80s New York mindset. Protecting them no matter what from the outside world, even if they behaved like monsters. Which is basically why I did my best to run away.
F: JD Salinger fan over here, everybody!
E: RIP.
F: He's been resting in peace for years, the lazy old fucker!
African Music Miners!
C: Your dad's a professor at Columbia...
E: My dad cancelled his New Yorker subscription in the 90s because Tina Brown was "dumbing it down"; no one else I know has ever referred to the New Yorker as dumb.
F: I take it yours wasn't a big American Idol household.... I read the New Yorker for the profiles. So imagine my disappointment when I read Vampire Weekend's [piece in the Culture section]. Everything seemed just about MONEY. One minute they're in an MTV studio introducing songs that had been given to them - rolling their eyes at some of the selections off-camera. And then they're talking to this sad clown [Tom DeLonge from Blink 182] who was trying to sell them a one-stop shop website where they could sell records.
E: I thought that exchange with DeLonge was wonderfully bizarre.
F: I admit they redeemed themselves somewhat by laughing in his face and then having to apologize.
E: I liked how the New Yorker piece showed that most of the band members were middle class, and that the keyboardist's parents were Iranian refugees.
F: Yes, but they looked a bit silly when they were forced to admit that they've never played a gig in Africa. That was kind of embarrassing.
E: How many American or English rock bands have ever played Africa, though?
F: The embarrassment's due to their self-styled "Upper West Side Soweto" music -- and the controversy over that following their first album. Some critics said it was a typically American, imperialistic attitude to the Third World - nicking their music and passing it off as their own. Do you think that was unfair?
E: Well, I wonder how much would have changed if they had never used that term.
F: True.
E: I think a characteristic trait of the bourgeois is self-loathing, loathing your stock in life, which VW is all about trying to break through. The people I know who hate VW were the type of people most likely to be in the "Society for the preservation of the oxford comma" Facebook group.
F: Or the "Society for people who don't know what the fuck Vampire Weekend are singing about" group!
E: I don't know how many of my friends actually listen to new pop music with intense detail; I think maybe 2?
F: How many friends do you have? I want to work out a ratio.
E: I have over 700 Facebook friends...
F: You can't count Facebook friends -- you only need them for Mafia Wars!
Koenigga!
F: Ezra Koenig, the band's singer, is not the only Koenig to reach out and embrace black music. (At least, I hope it's a different Koenig.)
E: Hah! That's a great fake twitter account waiting to happen.
Preppie Bastards!
Ethan: [Growing up] I avoided the NYC prep kids but I think VW have a very astute sense of where things have come in terms of music and contemporary American culture...
F: You avoided the preppie kids. One would think you'd give Vampire Weekend a wide berth too.
E: I was interested first off because I knew no other bands that had gotten big from my neighbourhood.
F: "They're preppie bastards -- but they're MY preppie bastards."
E: The band head of the Dirty Projectors was a Yale musicology student, but no one seems to give him any guff for that.
F: 'Cause nobody's heard of 'em!
E: Exactly! [Who really thinks] bands like Dirty Projectors and Liars will EVER have mainstream appeal?
F: Their mothers.
Cryptic Lyricists!
F: It can ruin the imaginative, interactive experience of listening to a song when the writer insists on using esoteric phrases that only he understands... I think the new album is full of them.
E: I do too.
F: But you're from their neighbourhood - you can get the references. Spare a thought for everyone else! ...Why is that such a trend these days, do you think? Years ago, it was "I wanna hold your hand". Now it's "I don't wanna be your contra". What the fuck is he talking about?
E: Well, I think it's rare to see cryptic lyrics with actual nuance and sublety...
F: Ethan, what does this line mean to you: I think UR a contra.
E: "I think UR a contra", to me, basically means that the person he's talking to is a wannabe sandinista raised in comfort and as far away from war/violence as imaginable. It's not a new concept, but it's not a particularly old one in the larger historical sense.
F: Jesus - very relatable. I was told it was a love song. But I prefer your explanation.
E: It is; it's kinda about the hopelessness of love when people are pretending to be someone they're not, which is never a good thing for love or politics.
Relentless Melodists!
C: VW's music on this album, I felt pummelled after listening to it. So many melodies and drum patterns and keyboard riffs and guitar parts... and that's just the first song.
E: I think it's sort of a wild, wonderfully, diverse album... White Sky might be my favorite song on the album; it's got that quietLOUDquiet thing going.
F: Yep, I love White Sky.
E: Some songs are very gentle, while others are much tougher than they seem at first... Cousins is a pretty scariest song when you think about it.
F: There's a LOT going on. I think [the album going to #1] is to the credit of mainstream music buyers - not the trendies who've stolen the album off the internet.
E: Giving Up The Gun is a perfect example of how to use keyboards/synthetic music, but with fantastic melodies in a progression I haven't heard many songs like before.
Hyperbole Enablers!
E: It may sound hyperbolic, but I'd compare this album to Nevermind...
F: Christ, spot the critic!
E (cont/d): ...in that it brought a wide variety of sounds going on in the indie/underground in the previous decade to what now serves as the mainstream in a glossy pop package.
F: They've added more electronica on this album. I'm not fully sold on their electronic elements. I used to have a terrible snobbish prejudice against American electronic music. I thought that because there's no proper raves in the US, then they don't know how to do electronic stuff. I came to it slowly and now I love things like LCD Soundsystem and Casino vs Japan.
E: I think electronic stuff still has to seem somewhat warm and organic; the robots haven't won yet, but basically anything that's easy to dance has the chance to devolve quickly into stupidity...
F: My favorite tune is Run - which of course has a wonderful electronic-y hook.
E: That's one of the better electronic tracks I've heard in quite some time. it almost makes me regret the praise I used to throw at LCD Soundsystem, it's that good.
F: Hyperbole much?
E: Yeah, I think my problem as a critic is that I get too hyperbolic with things I like.
F: Does it spread to real life? Do you find yourself saying, "Mother, this is the greatest dinner ever?!"
E: I think if I introduce any caveats into what I like, people will think it's not as good as I think it is.
F: A caveat at the end of a review is acceptable. "I loved the steak, mother, but the carrots were a little dry."
The Verdict
F: Okay, let's sum up.
E: I'll be honest, I love this album like I've loved few albums in recent years. I can see myself listening to it when I'm 90, which I can say about few things at all
F: Ha ha - hyperbole be damned!... OK, for me, the African music debate is bogus. One of my fave tunes from last year was Koenig's Warm Heart of Africa with an African band (The Very Best)... he seems to genuinely admire that continent's musicians. Musically Contra was relentlessly inventive, but I couldn't interact with the songs emotionally, because of the mostly indecipherable lyrics. That's great for a gym or party song, but when you're looking for substance, it just isn't there. OK, it's there - but it's inside the lead singer's head.
E: I think it's an album that takes a lot of themes in contemporary music and puts it in this universally positive context.
F: So, they're upbeat?
E: Ultimately, I think this is a band based on love, which is rare, considering how much rock n roll is based on counterculture - but it's not blind love or blindly happy either...
F: Just for a minute there you were the happiest sounding Jewish guy I've ever heard.
E: It is pretty rare!
F: Heh heh - Sticker for their album cover: "Vampire Weekend. Can make Jewish guys happy."
E: That wouldn't win over the all but 13 million people in the world who AREN'T Jewish.
F: You're right - it should read "For Miserable Bastards Everywhere!"... Man, we covered a lot of ground! Famous last words?
E: Alright, I will emphasize that it is crucial not to get caught up in the hype (over their African music stylings, etc). That has nothing to do with the album itself... If we're going to accept the Rolling Stones, we have to accept VW too.
Vampire Weekend - Contra. With Shiksa on front cover. Miserable bastards of all races, religions, and creeds should buy it now.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (23)
Buy..I'm a miserable bastard but who buys records? Just dive in the stream. Good stuff, E & F.
To me they are the Talking Heads of today. The imperialist charge is a bit simplistic...the African sounds are only a small part of what they're doing. People love hating these days, I think it's because they get a little overwhelmed by the amount of stuff out there and buried in their various sub-genre hype machines.
As a middle class or lower kid who went to a New England prep school, I know folks like this, I've seen shirts like that, and I can live with it. I like when the preppies become musicians better than when they become bankers.
Love our Google ad.
Thanks, Cody. I bought this one on emusic! Although I know what you mean. Still, you bought Doves, didn't you? And that cheered you up! We have you on record rhapsodizing about decay.:-)
Yeah, the imperialist charge is a bit much! It was made by critics from Great Britain. [Put your own punchline here.]
"I like when the preppies become musicians better than when they become bankers." Well put!
As successful musicians they will lso get first crack at some very good drugs..better than "lawyer pot" even.
That ad is sweet. My wife is (secular)Jewish and my son is learning some yiddish. Me, I worship at the altar of
satanMOG.I liked this record first time through..it fits in with the whole caliope rock scene..animal collective, grizzly bear etc..at least to my ears. Big steaming pots of everything..I also love Horchata the drink..probably more than the song.
"I also love Horchata the drink..probably more than the song." heh heh, you should, like, write journalism or something.
I hadn't thought of it, but yourself and Ethan are very much in agreement on how well they fit with Animal Collective and suchlike. Get a room.
I'm a secular working class christian living in a country where the church has abused people to horrendous degrees -- and yet, all the folks from the posh areas I know still go to mass. Incredible. Dear NYC pen pal, can you send me the following item through the post, please:
oooh that hurts...Am I supposed to be McCain or Bush..I cringe waiting for the answer.
I am scared of guns and churches and McBush..you really struck at my fear centers with your comment. I need to cool down and refresh with some Horchata..
I also forgot to compliment you on the rhyming title of your post. Jew and review have been rhymed before but probably less than I want ya and contra.
Heh heh. Why join a social network for any reason other than to frighten people?
McCain looks soooo in love there. You of course are neither. In my admittedly addled head, you're mentally filed away close to this guy:
He doesn't like guns either, has been to college (briefly) and I'd say he's sampled "lawyer pot".
"I also forgot to compliment you on the rhyming title of your post."
What can I say, I read a lot of Shakespeare.
Dude! Good call. I aspire to that type of greatness.
Did your butler come with you?
Class...
Fun fun fun as usual...you two made me actually want to listen to the new VW album--at least until that Nevermind connection kicked in my Seattle resident superiority gene. Now, I HAVE to listen.
This came out pretty excellent.
As much as I wanted to do this review, good choice. Great as always!
@ Neill - Thank you, idiotic questions are speciality of mine.
@ Amber - Wow, a rareity. A review on this page that makes people want to check out the album! Hope you dig it, Amber.
@ Ethan - Thanks again for taking the time and bringing so much to it. I could have posted another review with all the good stuff I had to take out.
@ Tyler - Thanks, man. It's first come, first served, so no choice was made -- the review stars aligned on this one. I'm taking a short break from it for a week or so and then, I'll carry on working through the list. I think there's 4 more before I get to your good self! But I just know ours will be great!
I started reading the review repeating to myself "Just because you enjoy the review does not mean you have to listen to the album" but it was in vain. Now I have to add another album to my pile of "To Listen To"s. Great review, immensely entertaining as usual.
Well the Shiska is very 1987 HOTNESS!
Your spell checker is Goy. It's "Shiksa," if you're one of The Chosen People. It's Shiska is you're ordering something roasting on a skewer. (I'm a 3G Japanese-American raised as a Methodist, with many Buddhist relatives. But Hawaii's governor goes to Temple.)
@ dc - Cheers, man. "Just because you enjoy the review does not mean you have to listen to the album" I should put that warning label on every review.
@ ghost - Can't argue that. What would Michael Landon do?
@ Aiea - You've outed me as a goy. Duly noted and changed, thank you.
Took me some time to get to, but great read. Sharp. Appealing, less hateful re: Vampire Weekend than I expected. Hate is a strong word, isn't it?
The new one hasn't quite grown on me yet, but since when was growing a requirement for a sophomore record, right? It should be engaging on first listen.
Thanks for taking the time to read it, Eric. Not sure if there's much of a market for these long pieces on Mog anymore. As for the record, yeah, it's not an instant grabber. Certainly not like the first one. As I say above, I think that's down to being too clever-clever with the lyrics. There's no way in emotionally -- it's like a musical firewall!
I think interesting discussion like this work. True, it requires a few minutes but if the topic is sharp and the subjects, on their game, I think those who might be interested would read.
I haven't even began to listen to the lyrics, yet. Odd. That's the problem w/ having so much at our disposal/so much music - less time to "look at the linar notes and lyrics."
You'll need a few years free to decipher the latest set of lyrics. :-)