Internets, I have a confession: I spent all day today listening to Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend on endless loop.
Literally all day. More than eight hours, even allowing for breaks for lunch, phonecalls, and a webinar.
It started because I had Diane Young stuck in my head (again) and then I just kind of got stuck in their groove and didn’t get out.
My observations on this experience are as follows:
1. Whoever came up with the video for Diane Young really fucked up. They took this FBI-agents-on-roller-skates dance party of a song and made it the soundtrack for the world’s most emo Last Supper. That said, when I watched it, I said both “what the hell? and also “I guess I’d maybe like to hear the rest of that record,” and I was not previously a Vampire Weekend fan.
2. They somehow sound like a fusion of Paul Simon and fun., but minus the latter’s tendency towards gloppily anthemic pop ballads. Now, I enjoy listening to Nate Ruess wear his heart on his sleeve and jump up his range as much as anyone else, but after a while it’s like being force-fed a seven course meal consisting entirely of cherry cobbler and vanilla custard. Vampire Weekend is just as capable of sweetness, it’s just that theirs is the less dessert and more the perfect hot cup of coffee from a street vendor before dawn on an icy New York morning.
3. Okay maybe they are a little bit gloppy sometimes:
4. A brief sampling of reactions to a few of the rest:
Don’t Lie is both plaintive and full of furbelows; Finger Back is a real New York love story (and also a true story, at least in part) told at breakneck speed and also my very favorite song; Everlasting Arms is what you play when cleaning your kitchen by yourself on a Friday night (bottle of wine optional); Hannah Hunt reminds me of a time when all of my furniture was foldable or inflatable and the Tower Records in the East Village salvaged many a bleak evening; and Hudson is the sound of the heart of the city that exists beneath/beside the one with all the bright shiny lights. There are the places the tourists go, and then there are the places we actually live, and sometimes they look like they are the same, but they are not.
Overall: A++, would marathon again.
