(If You Ask Me) Vampire Weekend Sucks!

A couple of weeks ago, NME published the name of 25 bands making America cool again. Well, I’m not an American but I partly know what’s cracking over there (at least in music and films). Everybody’s free to publish a zillion of lists on his/her blog or magazine or whatever. But this particular NME list sounds weirdly controversial and inappropriate in a sense. Well, you can’t disagree that much with RollingStone’s 100 Immortal artists of all time or Pitchfork’s 100 best albums of the 70s but this list was absolutely out of nowhere, especially the list topper. If there’s a band that can make a country cool again, it’s sunny clearly not Vampire Weekend. By the start of 2008 this band was almost everywhere. That hilariously bad cover art had obviously nothing to do with the respect and attention they gained instantly. I made my state clear in my own review a short while after that but I never expected such hype on them being the no.1 band that making America cool again. Well, the only names making sense on that list were Fleet Foxes, MGMT, Lil Wayne and probably TV On The Radio. But hey! Look at all those big left-outs! Just to mention a few I can recall Beach House, The Black Keys (not Lips), Dr. Dog and the list could somehow end with The Magnetic Fields for their undeniable impact on indie music during the last couple of years.
At first I was so delighted getting this debut Vampire Weekend album. But not a single factor could satisfy me upon every listen and my hopes diminished with every new attempt trying to find something on this record. All the afro-beat melodies you found are stolen (I still don’t know the source but I can assure you in the near future, their original source will definitely be revealed). No, seriously who can make a decent and pure melody like the one used in “M79”? Sounds like a bittersweet-symphony-Vivaldi masterpiece but doesn’t sound anything newly-written by a bunch of kids. So I’m furiously dubious on all that hype. Ezra Koenig and Rostam Batmanglij’s voices are nothing particular, they are hardly heard and by time both become disturbing. The production of the album is terrible. The drum sounds are all stabbing harshly into your ear (similar to what you heard on Beck’s Modern Guilt). The fast-beat-ness of the whole album makes it a willy-nilly production that cannot be tolerated for a second listening attempt. Their video is even more humiliating and grotesque. They have been wrongly compared to Sublime, but that’s of course nothing but junk talk. Sublime had its time and really made sense back then. I had mostly read good reviews on NME, it has introduced me to many good records. But this was just their weakest link ever, putting a small nowhere band on their top. Even on their best moments, Vampire Weekend has just decided to be fun! But the poor production and mix are such giant barriers to that. Vampire Weekend sucks! But fortunately enough, my vote doesn’t count. Now go make as many lists as you want and make them your no.1!