Vampire Weekend - Contra Review

In 2008, Vampire Weekend inadvertently became ‘the’ band of the World Music movement (of all the stuff to “revive”, these guys chose Paul Simon). People lost their shit and seemingly couldn’t believe that a group of preppy, college kids could have such an appreciation for African/Caribbean music (HEY, ‘memba a lil’ band by the name of Talking Heads?).

I felt their debut was too gimmicky, trying too hard to shove its influences in front of you, influences that ironically consist of an album by a white man who also wanted to try his hand at “World Music” music, nearly thirty years ago. Despite my apathy, much like MGMT and The Strokes, Vampire Weekend broke out of their Indie mold by selling a ton of records in the U.S.; Last I checked, their self-titled debut was almost at over 800,000 copies sold.

I went into Contra expecting to hate it the way I hate most of the bands who try this “Worldbeat, World Music” shit, but I actually enjoyed the record quite a bit; though I must say, the only thing the album had going for it prior to its release was the title being a loose Clash reference. Contra is more formulaic than Vampire Weekend’s debut, and it’s better for it. 

“Holiday” is a perfect example of what the album is: short, straight forward pop with Island-like rhythms, terrific vocal melodies (though the lyrics are mostly worthless), and few surprises. However, Contra does take an unexpected turn every few tracks: “Taxi Cab” decides to take a ballad approach to their usual formula, with nice piano sounds and claps against an atypical, soft vocal from lead singer Ezra Koenig, who is usually abrasive as fuck. There are “A-Punk” clones all over the record, so it’s these occasional left turns that are the most interesting songs. Although the album is well produced, well mixed, and varied with interesting vocal melodies and rhythms (most of which are fantastic), I just find the band to be really lame.  

When you think about it, Vampire Weekend are like the kids on the college campus who walk around imitating British accents, pretending that they transferred from Cambridge and laughing to themselves as they fool others; the only difference here is that they’re wearing Ralph Lauren Polo shirts (*cough* album cover) and acting as if they’re from the Caribbean. While the music is good (and much better than their debut record), it still feels really fake – such as the way that Ezra sings “Horchata”. Bands such as The Police ran into this same problem – Sting being so self-aware of it that their second album was titled Reggatta de Blanc. When listening to “California English,” I had a temporary dissonance of the appreciation I felt for the previous three tracks, saying to myself: “this is a group of fucking corny-ass NYU kids,” and as true as that may be, I can’t deny that Vampire Weekend has a knack for pop songwriting, great pop songwriting that’s warm and feel-good; they don't sound like much else out there -- even if by the time it's over you never want to hear the word "Contra" again. 

In 2008, Vampire Weekend inadvertently became ‘the’ band of the World Music movement (of all the stuff to “revive”, these guys chose Paul Simon). People lost their shit and seemingly couldn’t believe that a group of preppy, college kids could have such an appreciation for African/Caribbean music (HEY, ‘memba a lil’ band by the name of Talking Heads?).

I felt their debut was too gimmicky, trying too hard to shove its influences in front of you, influences that ironically consist of an album by a white man who also wanted to try his hand at “World Music” music, nearly thirty years ago. Despite my apathy, much like MGMT and The Strokes, Vampire Weekend broke out of their Indie mold by selling a ton of records in the U.S.; Last I checked, their self-titled debut was almost at over 800,000 copies sold.

I went into Contra expecting to hate it the way I hate most of the bands who try this “Worldbeat, World Music” shit, but I actually enjoyed the record quite a bit; though I must say, the only thing the album had going for it prior to its release was the title being a loose Clash reference. Contra is more formulaic than Vampire Weekend’s debut, and it’s better for it. 

“Holiday” is a perfect example of what the album is: short, straight forward pop with Island-like rhythms, terrific vocal melodies (though the lyrics are mostly worthless), and few surprises. However, Contra does take an unexpected turn every few tracks: “Taxi Cab” decides to take a ballad approach to their usual formula, with nice piano sounds and claps against an atypical, soft vocal from lead singer Ezra Koenig, who is usually abrasive as fuck. There are “A-Punk” clones all over the record, so it’s these occasional left turns that are the most interesting songs. Although the album is well produced, well mixed, and varied with interesting vocal melodies and rhythms (most of which are fantastic), I just find the band to be really lame.  

When you think about it, Vampire Weekend are like the kids on the college campus who walk around imitating British accents, pretending that they transferred from Cambridge and laughing to themselves as they fool others; the only difference here is that they’re wearing Ralph Lauren Polo shirts (*cough* album cover) and acting as if they’re from the Caribbean. While the music is good (and much better than their debut record), it still feels really fake – such as the way that Ezra sings “Horchata”. Bands such as The Police ran into this same problem – Sting being so self-aware of it that their second album was titled Reggatta de Blanc. When listening to “California English,” I had a temporary dissonance of the appreciation I felt for the previous three tracks, saying to myself: “this is a group of fucking corny-ass NYU kids,” and as true as that may be, I can’t deny that Vampire Weekend has a knack for pop songwriting, great pop songwriting that’s warm and feel-good; they don't sound like much else out there -- even if by the time it's over you never want to hear the word "Contra" again. 

Saw these dudes on Letterman the other day. They were... meh, they were OK. But at least their style is unique, unlike a lot of bands out there now.

I like your writing style here. Better than what I do when I talk about albums. I would sometimes agree with you about Vampire Weekend in that they might seem like they're trying hard to seem like their not trying at all- you can't just try to be hipster and detached, you just are. Besides that, I definitely recommend the album to anyone who's craving well-crafted alternative rock/pop music. Every song has something that attracts you, even if the songs themselves could be hit or miss at times.
 
However, Spoon pretty much outclassed Vampire Weekend with their latest album, so I'd say if there's one alt-rock-pop album you're gonna buy this month, it's Spoon's.

I like the album, it's just got a lot of catchy pop songs and I appreciate that.

Fucking hipsters..

I find them meh, good review though 

i dont really agree with your review but hey, people will have different opinions.
 
what im actually shocked about is that you didnt put Giving Up the Gun as a track to get. It was definately a standout on the album for me along with Horchata.
 
looking forward to seeing more reviews

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 I understand that I am not one to talk about the 'lameness' of Vampire Weekend lol. Ugh, I look like I should be in Grizzly Bear singing background vocals and playing bass. "