07 February 2008

The (Obligatory) Vampire Weekend Post

If you attended a liberal arts college, particularly a prestigious Northeastern one, chances are over some point during your collegiate experience you were awkward, pretentious or angsty, or some combination thereof (lord knows I was). See here's the weird thing, the boys of Vampire Weekend, fresh Columbia grads mind you, succeed in making music that is neither of those three adjectives. Perhaps this is why the blogs are buzzing about them?

For a debut record, their self-titled album is remarkably confident and ridiculously upbeat. While the Louis Vitton name-dropping and abnormal amount of lyrical references to Cape Cod and obscure punctuation (I'll admit it, I had to wikipedia "Oxford Comma")might seem a bit on the bourgeois-ivory-tower-academia side, there is a self-knowing and all too amiable sweet nature belying the music. There is also a hint of privileged white-boy exoticism. All the strings and tropical percussion just make me want to sip Bartles & James on a yacht. I assure you, this is not a bad thing.

Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend
Campus - Vampire Weekend

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