Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
This album almost – almost – fell foul of one of the great perils of the internet age: pre-release over-exposure. I’d already heard over half the songs on this record before the album itself ever got anywhere near me, which was close to ruining the surprise and excitement of listening to a new record for the first time. I mean, if you’ve already heard most of the songs already and the few new ones don’t quite cut the mustard then the letdown can overwhelm even the enjoyment of listening to the ones you already knew you liked. Of course, this phenomenon is not exclusive to the internet age: it used to happen with singles too. Gene and The Bluteones spring to mind, back in the mid-90s, but I think it’s a lot worse nowadays.
I mean, a lot of bands get signed now on the back, not of demos per se, but internet self-release EPs and free mp3 giveaways until enough people have heard of them that someone at a record label finally signs what is, in effect, a near-finished product. It appears to me to be much less common for some enterprising A&R man to scour the pubs for a bit of buzz, take a chance on a dozen crap gigs and then finally unearth a group he thinks will be a gem. The label might take a chance on the back of some sweaty basement performance and *boom* a massive new band appears as if from nowhere. Nowadays the internet, and to a large extent the blogs, are pretty much free A&R for anyone who cares to read. Take the groups your label already has, find the blogs that post about them, set up your RSS feeds and wait for someone else’s work to do your job for you.
Consequently, if you’re a band and can record pretty decent version of your songs and release them before a record label even takes any interest then what are you going to do? You’ll assemble your four or five best tracks, burn them to CD-R and make them available from your website or your MySpace or wherever you can. If you do two of them, like Vampire Weekend did, then all your best material will be out there before anyone ever buys an album. And the label won’t pay you to write new songs will they, because they want the ones that have already been market-tested and that they know the public like. So, as here, you end up releasing a debut album people know almost back to front before it even hits the shelves.
In this case, fortunately, the songs I don’t know aren’t the dregs of Vampire Weekend’s back catalogue. They are, like the rest of their output, bouncy and immensely enjoyable indie pop with just a touch of the fey about them. There’s obvious splashes of ska and it sounds a little like they kidnapped Paul Simon’s guitarist from the Graceland album, but it works really really well.
There has been a lot of criticism of these guys from the Fun Police about them being superficial flibbertigibbets who practise over-privileged, condescending musical colonialism and I think this is total shit. Honestly, they’ve found a sound they like, they make lightweight and extremely entertaining indie pop and this music can be enjoyed without having to analyse it like some kind of opera critic with a fucking pickle up your arse. Just relax, people, it may be fluff, it may not be remembered in a hundred years but the minute the sun starts shining and your friends come round for a couple of beers this is one of the first albums you are going to want to reach for.
Vampire Weekend – Boston
Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
fucking spot fucking on re: the way pre-hype snowballs and can spoil records (ha – still calling them records..) even spotter-on about the fun police and Vampire Weekend and how great they sound
Dusty
ps – I have just started a local radio show down here in Stockport and thanks to discovering them via your superb, reason-for-becoming-a-blogger-myself blog I have played Down The Tiny Steps and Nicole Atkins on the show so far and intend to feature
Joe Lean, Rob St. John, Ezra Furman and Broken Records over the next few weeks.
Keep up the phenomenally good work.
Oh brilliant. I’ll let them know next time I see them. DtTS, Rob and the Broken Records lads are all out and about around here from time to time.
Is there a podcast to accompany the radio show that I could download? I’d love to be able to listen, despite being miles away from the broadcast area.
Sounds good – looking forward to hearing it. I haven’t got my copy yet. Damn the music-thieving east London postmen!
The number of times promo types tell me they’ve put something in the post for me and it just never arrives is just silly. I then forget and then their band doesn’t get heard. Either leave me alone and I will find and buy my own music or, if you want to push your stuff, do it bloody properly.
Just after I wrote that it arrived. Listening to it now – it’s great, even though like you I have heard more than half of it before.
I started listening to VW maybe two months ago. I begged off for a long time because of the hype (I can’t help it – it’s my kneejerk reaction) but then finally gave a song a chance. And then another. And then another. These guys are great and fun police need to get over themselves.
I don’t have EVERY song from their self-released stuff; I forced myself to stop looking for them so I could enjoy the album when it came out–not to mention there’d be enough “new” stuff on the album that I wouldn’t feel like a jackass for paying money for something I’d already been given for free.
Re – radio show – I am aiming to create a podcast of the show in future – the two shows we’ve done so far have been live and I’m always panicking so much I forget to stick a cd in to record…
but we have to cut down to a pre-recorded hour for the next four weeks as Pure is the official station of Stockport County and they have a game next week and every bleedin’ Tuesday in Feb…
I’ll get a podcast to you though – would love to know what you think
ps – could you do me the massive honour of adding me to your blogroll?
Dusty’s Fury (unmasked at): web.mac.com/martinjohnston1
ta!
Ultimately, Scott, I have a tendency to be a snob and I know I do. But I do have to remind myself that music is basically for fun, most of the time. It’s so easy to talk about it a lot and descend into this kind of self-important, self-appointed critic persona.
But I write about music because I love having the record player on, and this album is just the kind to play when happy and carefree and when consigning you pomposity to the dustbin. Which I need to do from time to time.
Dusty, if your podcast is regularly as good as your playlists suggest I’d be only too happy to link. Hell, I’ll enthusaistically plug your show as best I can. Being linked to by me is no honour though. Internet music writing is basically just a free-for-all of enthusiastic fans. None of us more legitimate or more authoritative than the next. Your stuff could eclipse mine in a week, under the right circumstances.
Enthusiastic amateurs-R-us!
Cheers – though I think as your post after this proves, you have a good few years on me in terms of enthusiastically spreading the word.
Did you see the article in The Guardian Guide today? Tim Jonze was writing about Foals and Adele complaining about being hyped. The nerve.
As Jonze rightly says “..hype’s not really an evil thing. These days especially, it’s born from small fan movements, writers and radio DJs who love your band and want you to do well.”
An interesting addendum to your Vampire Weekend thoughts.
Thanks for this. Since I am american and old it takes blogs like yours to hep me to stuff I might like (lifelong Indelicates fan am I now)
That said. I was expecting something completely different than what I got here. (I didn’t read the blog, I just kept seeing the name and decided to take the tracks) I am reminded of Violent Femmes in a way. In that, the name suggested one thing and the music was so very opposite of it.
It’s nice, guess. I think if it had been released in the era that they are apeing, it might have found some airplay near and around Dexy’s and Musical Youth. Nothing all that special.
“Fun Police” – Nice one.
Can’t wait for their second record. It probably wont be for another two years or so but I bet you’ll love it.
Oh very funny.