Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Vampire Weekend: the new album


so the official release date is exactly one week away, and while certain music writing big wigs have had the new Vampire Weekend album for some time (Rolling Stone, Spin and the Chicago Sun-Times (among others) have, despite the holidays, already posted reviews), certain other music writing small wigs (me, for instance) got our official download file yesterday.

Rolling Stone laid out four out of five stars (and one commenter accurately pointed out that the reviewer "gushed," had nothing bad to say about the music (but managed a rich boy bitchslap ("Koenig still comes across as a kid who brings his laundry home to Mom"), so why not five stars?), as did Spin.
DeRogatis HATES the album (and the whole idea of Vampire Weekend, that is, privileged Ivy League kids adopting, without much complaint, the music of the world's poorest continent when someone with Paul Simon's track record couldn't get away with it 23+ years ago (of course, you don't hear much about Sun City nowadays either)), doling out the minimum (he has to give at least one, right?) one star out of four.
and high schoolers throughout the midwest came out in force to tell him that he was too old to be reviewing music.

I've listened to Contra approximately one and a half times and while it doesn't have the instantly catchy tunes the self-titled debut did (easy enough to figure out in a listen and a half), the group does appear to stick to their stylistic guns. you can name the band in maybe a note or two (that's a Name That Tune reference just in case any of DeRogatis' commenters are lurking (Google it; I don't have the will to explain) and it certainly sounds like they're making a bona fide effort.
which doesn't mean they're succeeding necessarily.

yeah, I need some more time, but I can't imagine this being in the record of the year discussion 11 months from now (flashback one year to the early annointment of Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion), nor does it provide worthwhile fodder for the early haters gathering at their keyboards (though since the guys are all obviously muy intelligente I'm going to assume the album title is merely a bad joke rather than a poorly researched, really stupid decision; in any case . . . )

final verdict (based on a listen and a half): Vampire Weekend has done better and they'll almost certainly do worse.

last book I ever read: Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big To Fail
verdict: recommended

last movie I ever saw: The Good German
verdict: disappointing

best deal of the last two weeks: $5 Billabong shorts at a T. J. Maxx in Birmingham, Alabama
verdict: I wish it was summer already (for, oh, so many reasons)

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