The Bocker.com

The hype surrounding the band Vampire Weekend has been percolating since this past summer with mentions in Band on the rise-type articles across many music periodicals. The fall and autumn saw an increase of press and some radio play and has come full boil with the recent release of their eponymous debut album. As fellow Columbians, congratulations are in order; Vampire Weekend is omnipresent in music media, they are the new IT band.

The problem though, is that Vampire Weekend’s ascension to the role of indie rock darlings seems in some ways to be too perfect. Their image, ivy league prepsters with a sense for African drumbeats and arcane trivia, as portrayed in their press seems to be too clear and defined. Their music, while catchy and crisp, seems a little too clean and assembled. Even their group pictures have a sense of being choreographed and arranged delicately, down to the pleat in the drummer’s khaki or manner in which the lead singer’s shirt is tucked. To unnecessarily adapt Shakespeare, something is rotten in the band of Vampire Weekend.

The words contrived and artificial, not nuanced and quirky, come to mind after reviewing Vampire Weekend’s full collection of press and music releases. These four highly intelligent corroborators manufactured a ready-to-sell image and accompanied it with equally marketable music with “exotic” influences and peddled this package to the indie music world. The end result is an album and a band that epitomizes precisely what indie music isn’t and art in general should never be.

Every Vampire Weekend interview or profile seems to be written with the help of a band provided crib sheet. The foursome, Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio met during their undergraduate studies at Columbia University. The band is always noted as being preppy and New York with a self-awareness of their image. They are keen to make sharp references which display their vast ivy league-bred base of knowledge. Their music is always noted to be a fusion of Afro-pop and indie rock, with influences from Paul Simon’s Graceland album and the Talking Heads. Here are a few snippets of ink exhibiting the constructed story of Vampire Weekend:

‘The guys are just as studied when it comes to fashion, with a preference for blazers, button-downs and other blue-blood affectations. Mr. Koenig said he had found his cardigan, decorated with embroidered pheasants, at a Ralph Lauren boutique in Palo Alto, Calif. “I’ve got another one that’s yellow with dogs on it,” he said.

“That’s what the kids are wearing these days,” said Mr. Tomson, whose cardigan was free of ornamentation.

Hardly keeping vampire hours, Mr. Koenig, the only member who still lives uptown, bade farewell to his Brooklyn-bound mates around 10 p.m. But not before reminding them of their plans for the following day: a field trip to Lacoste.” (The New York Times Style Section, 1/27/08/)

“Koenig is smart and lucky, in that he gets to play the preppy angle both ways: Like a guy who’s read a lot of Cheever, he can summon up the atmosphere of kids whose parents use ’summer’ as a verb and give it all the hairy eyeball at the same time.” (Pitchfork, Album Review 1/28/08)

“Fans describing Vampire Weekend often mention “Graceland” — the album, not the estate. It’s an inexact reference point, but an effective one, evoking 1980s nostalgia (it’s getting harder to find people who pretend to dislike that Paul Simon masterpiece) and an unfussy approach to Afro-pop.” (New York Times, 6/18/07)

“Long story short: After graduating from Columbia, the men of Vampire Weekend began cobbling together their debut, a giddy indie pop album with an African backbeat. They dubbed their style “Upper West Side Soweto” (because they’re clever like that — and because they couldn’t let poor Paul Simon have this one thing).” (Washington Post, 1/28/08)

“You can really hear that most in the live percussion, Graceland clearly seeming like the strongest reference point.
EK: It’s true. The music that Paul Simon listened to then is the same we’ve been listening to.

RB: But Paul Simon didn’t just listen to that music, he used it as a structure to work from. We haven’t done anything like that. All our music is pretty original, I think.

CT: That’s not to hate on Graceland, but there is this compilation called The Indestructible Beat of Soweto and there is a song on there with this “Gumboots” sort of beat and there is a song on Graceland with the same band and same tune, but with Paul Simon’s lyrics over it all. There are elements and little bits that we try to work in, but we don’t copy.” (The Fader, 6/7/08) (Note: EK, RB and CT are the initials of members of the band)

These quotes left me with the idea that Vampire Weekend is nothing more than a cast of characters all scripted to be prep, hip and charmingly witty. The truth though is that these four are just a band of bluebloods with the saavy to concoct an image that sells because they are another white band playing black music, and advertising it as such.

Notice that I have yet to dismantle the music of Vampire Weekend. To be honest, their music, though not the masterwork suggested by some critics, is well produced and very together. Songs like “A Punk” and “Mansard Roof” will stay in one’s head for days on end. The music is readily listenable and shows off their trivia recesses and legwork done on Paul Simon’s Afropop.

When asked about their music though, Vampire Weekend seems only reveal two nuggets of information; their African an indie rock influences and that their music is original. This emphasis on originality is entirely unnecessary and comes across as music snobbery in my opinion. All music should be made with the intent of being original. Even a cover of someone else’s song is meant to show the cover artist’s own original interpretation. Below is their music video for A Punk, a song and video that just seem ripped from any of a number of 80s pop songs. (Pete Townshend and Peter Gabriel of that era immediately come to mind.)

To proclaim your own outright originality is indulgent and boorish. VW though, makes these statements in order to give their music proper respect and almost worship among rock critics. The critics and media types have eaten this bands musicality up with a table spoon and served it back to the public out tenfold. Nevermind that Vampire Weekend’s self-indulgence shrugs off Paul Simon’s previous efforts and unnaturally references modern hip-hop artists like Lil’ Jon within its lyrics.

The combination of a manfactured image and neatly packaged music leads to the ultimate problem with Vampire Weekend; they are precisely what Indie Music is not supposed to be. There is some ambiguity over what Indie Music is, but the genre is definitely not contrived, substance-less and artificial. It never reeks aristocratic, ivy-league or proper.

Thus while the music world genuflects on bended knee for Indie Emperor Vampire Weekend’s genius, I only see a band with no clothes. Just artifice and Sperry Top-Siders.

For anyone still interested in purchasing Vampire Weekend’s debut album, Vampire Weekend, it may be purchased at Target, according to the banner adorning their myspace profile. Be sure to buy quickly though, as this same banner advertises it at a sale price of $8.99 only through this week, and only and indie music’s superstore, Target.