The world’s best known former Ruggles inhabitants, Vampire Weekend, released their new album Contra yesterday. The album has received positive reviews so far, including a shockingly high 8.6 from notoriously picky Pitchfork Media. The band was recently interviewed for a Wall Street Journal music blog, Speakeasy. The band talked about books and wore cardigans.
VW also discussed their temporary move to California, and about Columbia’s reputation. Said frontman Ezra Koenig: “I feel like Columbia is a very different place than Princeton or Harvard, but to a lot of people writing about our band it might as well be George W. Bush at Yale in the ’60s. So it doesn’t always pay to be nuanced.”
Koenig even held forth on on Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: “I felt like the central theme was identity.” Uh huh…maybe he took Interpretation of Culture, too!
46 Comments
@people love to hate on Vampire Weekend, but you know they are laughing all the way to the bank. I think it sounds something like “MWAHAAHAA money money money!!” sung in falsetto over bongos and high-wailing electric guitars.
@Oh my gosh you guys... the core works!
@who is the chick on the album cover?
this album is also #1 on iTunes right now
@Anonymous classes need to start again…clearly everyone, including myself, has too much time on their hands.
@Anonymous word
@Try Oh sorry that was supposed to be in reply to Concerned Student.
@Concerned Student Thanks, I’ll spread the word and keep my eyes open for the unicef boxes
@Try Columbia UNICEF: \Columbia University UNICEF is collecting emergency supplies that will be immediately sent to Haiti. We will place boxes around campus for all non perishable food, clothing, toiletries, and medical supplies. Please contribute anything you can, and look out for the boxes once school starts.
Also, if you are a member of any organization on campus, we urgently need your help and collaboration with this emergency. Please contact us (cu.unicef@gmail.com) if you can assist us in any way. Thank you in advance for your help.\
@magel this band sucks.. i know much better bands in NYC.. how did vampire weekend get famous? i suspect some kind of under-the-table support because their music certainly doesnt stand out
@Anonymous What, they pay people “under the table” to buy their albums?
And, FYI, ellipses have three dots, not two.
@also anonymous MAYBE, just MAYBE, this person MAY HAVE accidentally typed 2 INSTEAD OF 3 periods in a row, thus creating a hideous grammatical miscarriage for which they can never be forgiven. Lighten up, so that I, in turn, can also lighten up.
@jameson LOL
@Konami Code Contra with no spread gun is no contra at all.
@Anonymous the sophisticuffs hahaha that’s gay.
and yea yea it’s wrong to say gay because gay people are people too blah blah blah. i know tons of gay people and none of them care about that, just like cool black people don’t care when you make black jokes and i don’t care when you make jew jokes even though i’m jewish; it’s called not taking shit seriously. and the ones that take shit seriously are gayer than sophisticuffs.
@to be fair you’re gay
@don't feed the troll
@sad I miss Jim. bring back good bwoggage!
@sup montclair i miss ezra’s old band the sophisticuffs from when he was in high school and performed at serendipity all the time… they were much better than vampire weekend.
also, it’s hilarious when people refer to them as WASPs – like, i went to ezra’s bar mitzvah, he’s definitely not a WASP….
@i know someone who knows someone who fucked ezra’s sister, should i drop her name or would that be weird/creepy, give it up for mtc
@!! Now, when I go home on the weekend, I’ll tell my friends that I know you. Transitive property of anonymous bwog exchanges suggests that I basically know, and fucked, everyone in vampire weekend.
@to be fair by WASP ppl are sloppily but understandably associating preppiness with WASPness. And VW is pretty preppy.
@Concerned Student BWOG! Please post something about the Earthquake in Haiti! What can we do if we want to help? Let’s Organize!
@ah ha! nobody cares! get back into your columbia bubble
@Overheard in New York... Really? REALLY??? What is wrong with you? Even if this were intended to be ironic, it would still be unbelievably tasteless. I hope you don’t go to Columbia to save myself the shame of being associated with you.
@By the way... the overheard in new york name was filled in automatically by accident when i typed O and I didn’t notice til after, so don’t jump all over me for my mistake because I know people on this site are very fond of that.
@asdf the title of this post blows dickwads..
and this band seems to suck.. listening to it right now, yea it sucks, this crap is worse than emo how could you call this music
@Surfin' UWS …Really?
Seriously this “eww your music sucks” attitude was immature in middle school. You’re in college now; grow the fuck up.
Don’t like it; don’t listen to it. Are you that insecure that the only way you can stand out as an “individual” is to blast other people’s tastes?
@so i was going to mock you for pulling the trite “you’re in college now” card but I felt compelled to point out the irony of saying someone is trying to be individualistic on an anonymous website. we all have opinions and it just makes me a little bit happier that someone’s opinion is bothering you
@hill Youtube: Broadcast Yourself.
hasn’t this ‘argument’ been hashed out enough?
@Anonymous aaaaand bait taken
@it's hard to enjoy their happy tunes when the love of your life doesn’t love you.
@Anonymous am I missing something, or are you trying to prove something to some poor girl who turned you down?
@ah ha! you need to listen to ‘i think you’re a contra’, the last song on the album
@jesus don't cry tall buildings shake, voices escape, singing sad sad songs.
@good call last cigarettes, all you can get, turning your orbit around
WILCO 4 LYPHE
@oh I like this
@jesus: you can rely on me, honey
@wee they were great on conan last night.
@fuck VW werewolf workweek FOR LIFE
@... hahaha
@no! TEAM EDWARD 4 LYFE
@Secret Admirer You deserve nothing but the finest meats, cheeses, and women for that comment. Or the most satisfying tofu, soy cheese, and persons with self-identified gender if you are a politically correct vegan.
@... The central theme is ALWAYS identity
@ALERT Guys! Contra is on sale at Amazon’s MP3 store for $3.99!!
@ALERT RESPONDER it’s also for free on the rest of the internets!
@Anonymous Promoting illegal activities on our sacred Bwog, whose virgin-like innocence serves to remind us all of our own shortcomings? How very dare you!