Why I Don’t Hate Vampire Weekend

I don’t believe Americans invented the ill-informed, knee-jerk reaction, but I know we’ve perfected it. Ask yourself if people who have the time to go to D.C. for a week and wave (often misspelled) signs are actually working enough to make enough money to be “Taxed Enough Already.” Just a for-instance. Politics is an easy field to which I can point and say, “Behold, y’all: ignorance abounds.” But fans of music are not immune, as I have found out on more than one occasion. Sometimes, if you don’t like a band that other people like, they’ll hate you for it. I don’t understand this myself, but it happens. And sometimes music fans like to react to things before they’ve heard them. I didn’t want to write too much about how people hate Vampire Weekend for their Ivy-League pedigree, their elitist references to “kefir” (goes good with arugala, Tea Partiers), or their globe-trotting sound because every Vampire Weekend review discusses that shit ad nauseum. But every review discusses that shit because there are more than a few people whose knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss Vampire Weekend as privileged posers, allowing their perception of the band as people to color their perception of the band as musicians. (It should be noted that plenty of great musicians are/were horrible people. Ask John Lennon’s kids what kind of father he was. Ask Joey Ramone what kind of friend Johnny Ramone was*. And so on.)

But here’s the thing: I didn’t want to like Vampire Weekend at first either. I felt snob-guilt for liking “A-Punk,” which I heard for the first time (gasp!) on a non-NPR-affiliated radio station. And I still listen to their first album and it’s still fun and interesting. And I wanted to cut myself off there and resist the urge to purchase Contra on the day it came out (I did read an NPR review of the album before I bought it. Cred restored? I don’t care). But who was I kidding?

I just can’t quit Vampire Weekend, to borrow a phrase from a vastly overrated film. The reason I can’t is because Vampire Weekend makes very – very - compelling pop music. That is due in no small part to the arranging abilities of a multi-instrumentalist whom I affectionately nicknamed Batman when discussing their first album. Batman punctuates Vampire Weekend’s hyper pop music with flourishes of wind and string instruments, while Ezra Koenig yelps his sometimes-clever lyrics (he’s no Isaac Brock, but he scores his share of points) and strums his usually-clean guitar. Their sound is not like the sound of other popular acts and I believe they come by their world-music inclinations honestly. So I like them and I like Contra and if you write a review where you say it’s the worst piece of shit you’ve ever heard, I promise I won’t post comments on your blog telling you to shoot yourself or trying to simultaneously abuse you and the English language. The reason I won’t do that is simple: I’m a fucking adult (looking at you -but certainly not all of you – fans of Portugal. The Man).

But enough peripheral bullshit. Let’s talk about Contra, can we? The songs are not drastically different from the songs on Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut – which is to say, the songs are good. There are one or two slower, more ballady numbers, and Auto-tune rears its ugly head on “California English”, much to my dismay. While I understand the aesthetic choice and there is compelling evidence that Ezra Koenig doesn’t need Auto-tune, I cannot state clearly enough that I loathe Auto-tune at all times under all circumstances. I think it sounds like shit. If Joe Strummer came back to life and told me that Auto-tune cures cancer, AIDS, poverty, and stupidity all at the same time, I would counter that it still sounds like shit and has no fucking business in my music. Ever. Also, Kanye West used Auto-tune on his entire last album and he doesn’t seem to be less stupid from where I sit. My gripe about the Auto-tune is smaller than it sounds, though – it (just barely) doesn’t ruin “California English” and certainly doesn’t ruin the rest of the album. Contra is similar to Vampire Weekend, but Contra is musically smarter. This is analogous to how I feel being newly 30 – it’s like being 20 again, but I’m smarter. I hope.

The only real question I have for Vampire Weekend is, can they pull this music off live? I might have to see them at Coachella to find out, but it looks like I’m headed back there this year, so that won’t be a problem. It doesn’t sound to me like Koenig sings anything particularly challenging for his vocal range, so what I’ll be looking for his how they pull off all of the nifty little instrumental flourishes. I predict heavy sequencing.

The bottom line is, if you liked the first Vampire Weekend record, Contra will probably also please you. If you didn’t like their debut, you’re probably not going to find much to change your mind here. If you don’t like Vampire Weekend because of where they’re from or what college they attended, or how “privileged”** you think they are, I think you’re cheating yourself out of some great pop music, but that’s your business.

*A bit of explanation for those of you who have, for some reason, not seen The End of the Century: Johnny’s wife was, at one time Joey Ramone’s girlfriend. Johnny Ramone wooed her away from Joey who, by way of passive aggressive vengeance, wrote “The KKK Took My Baby Away”, ostensibly about his guitarist Johnny. I honestly don’t know how the Ramones stayed together as long as they did, given how little they seemed to like each other.

**Anybody who gets to make music for a living is privileged, as is anyone who can go to the occasional (or frequent) concert. If you have time to troll the internet to defend the bands you love and dis the bands you hate, you are also privileged. To my knowledge, the dudes in Vampire Weekend are not the sons of cable TV moguls or oil barons or former pop stars. Even if the guys in Vampire Weekend were born rich, it makes no sense to hate them for it. They clearly used their privilege to hone what is, all else aside, remarkable musical talent. On the other hand, it does make sense to hate Paris Hilton because she’s famous for being born rich and has used her privilege to simultaneously attract new and exotic STDs, launch an abortive acting career, and launch an even more abortive (if possible) musical “career.”

Wavves Succks

In Pitchfork’s neverending quest to embrace anything that is incoherent and noisy, they have heaped loving spoonfuls of praise upon Nathan Williams, better known as Wavves (which I pronounce “Wah-Vez” out of a dogged unwillingness to See What He Did There), for his sophomore effort Wavvves (the follow-up to his eponymous debut, Wah-vez). I approached Wavvves with an open-mind – no really, I did. Despite its un-fucking-believably pretentious title, the Pitchfork review led me to believe that I might actually like Wah-Vah-Vah-Ves and I kinda did the first time I heard it… when it was called Surfer Rosa and it was by the Pixies. (See What I Did There, Wavves?)

The album covers of both Wavves and Wavvves (Dear Mr. Williams, Re: What You Did There… I don’t see it) would seem to indicate that Nathan Williams is a skateboarder, a hobby which I don’t hold against anyone per se, but combined with the unflinching Southern California-ness of his song titles (for example: “Beach Demon,” “Sun Opens My Eyes,” “Weed Demon,” and “California Goths”), the overall effect is one of a guy in a basement, screaming over tons of crunchy electric guitars, “Look at how hard I’m trying to look like I’m not trying very hard!” Wahvahvavoom smacks of a tedious effortlessness, a criticism you might level at Pavement if you liked being wrong.

Many of the songs on Wah-vah-vah-vah-ves are just guitar noise and electronic noise – presumably Williams was too busy getting stoned and skating to bother tossing any vocals on those tracks. And while I’m a fan of guitar noise, and even really noisy vocals (I love Titus Andronicus, for instance), there’s not enough on Look – I Put 3 V’s in the Title (Why Don’t You See What I Did There?) to really make me look past the fact that I’d rather be listening to either the aforementioned Surfer Rosa or Daydream Nation or The Airing of Grievances or albums of that nature.

The word “goth” appears in four song titles on Wablahblahblahves and one gets the feeling that Williams finds goths, like, soooo lame. Or something. I can’t really tell what he’s singing about half the time. Perhaps his persistent mockery of goths is his way of saying he doesn’t want to belong to or endorse any such stylized group, even though he is clearly classifiable as a skater who listens to The Pixies instead of a skater who listens to Blink-182. That might well be the highest praise I have for the lad! But the larger consideration should be given to the music itself which is consistently either irritating or derivative of other bands I’d rather listen to.  I have the same problem with Wavves that I had with Thom Yorke’s solo album – both are so far up their own asses with their particular sound (Yorke’s being a guy in a shed fucking a laptop and Wavves’s being a guy in a shed fucking a laptop and an electric guitar – and, lest someone should accuse me of hating electronic music, I will state for the record that I don’t; I simply compare all electronic music I hear to LCD Soundsystem and find most of it severely lacking indeed. James Murphy has set the bar pretty fucking high, and if you don’t believe that shit, you’d better run out and get yourself a copy of Sound of Silver and prepare to stand corrected. If anything on Wvvvvvvvvvves was even half of what “North American Scum” is or even a quarter of what “All My Friends” is, I’d tell the Pitchfork kids to scootch over so I could lovlingly sidle up to Nathan Williams and coo and cuddle him like they do) that the songs end up being semi-good at best and fucking unlistenable at worst. See Wavves’ annoyingly-misspelled “Killer Punx, Scary Demons” for examples of the latter category.

There are three songs on Wwwwwwwwaveeeeeeeeeeessssssssssss that I think are actually pretty good. In no particular order, they are “To the Dregs,” “No Hope Kids,” and “Weed Demon.” Three songs out of fourteen. Not a good ratio, but the three songs I like make me think that Williams does have potential. There’s some interesting noise on Wavvves, but not enough – when the longest song on your album is under four minutes and it still has me checking my watch, you’ve got a problem. The problem with Wavves is that I can’t help singing along bitterly when Williams sings “I’m so bored.” Except that he’s bored with… whatever he’s talking about and I’m bored with his album.

Holler and Stomp

Here at Bollocks!, we don’t believe in guilty pleasures. You like what you like and that’s your damn business (unless you like Fall Out Boy, then it’s the world’s business to take note and join forces to stop you). So I’m not going to make any apologies for liking Dressy Bessy. I like them. Fuck you.

Yes, their music is dreadfully simple. Yes, Tammy Ealom sings like your teenage sister, taunting and too cute by half. Yes, they have five albums that mostly sound the same. But they’re a lot of fucking fun, which is a good thing for rock music to be. Some people operate under the false assumption that indie music should be all serious and sensitive. Sometimes, though, you have to chill the fuck out and bounce around the room. That’s where Dressy Bessy comes in (although it should be said, and can’t be said enough, that The Hold Steady perfectly melds room-bouncing awesomeness with serious intelligence).

Holler and Stomp is their latest offering and I tried to resist it for as long as I could, but who am I kidding? I’m a complete weakling for this band and have been since their eponymous third album (which is really their best – loud guitars, tight focus, and perfect brevity). So here I am listening to Holler and Stomp. And since I liked this album before I ever even heard it (weakling, remember?), there’s not much to talk about here.

There’s actually a greater attempt at varied song structure on Holler and Stomp than on previous Dressy Bessy outings. Stop laughing, it’s true.  Their earlier work is pretty much straightforward rock, while Holler and Stomp flirts with funk and rockabilly. Dressy Bessy will probably never go the Green Day route of coyly planting a sensitive acoustic number at the end of a record thus launching them to the top of the charts, and that’s one of my favorite things about them. Their musical approach is, in a nutshell: “Any given song can be improved by adding an electric guitar to it.” This is the meat-and-potatoes shit, and Dressy Bessy does it with an infectious style.

Granted, the lyrics are often ridiculous. On the album opener “Automatic,” Ealom sings “I’m going to steal your candy,” and there’s nothing to indicate that this is any kind of metaphor. I’m pretty sure she’s talking about stealing your candy. “In Your Headphones” pretty much just repeats “It’s in your headphones” over and over (thank your favorite deity the song is barely two minutes long). There’s scant evidence in the Dressy Bessy catalog to suggest that they believe in metaphor or irony in the least, which is actually kind of refreshing when contrasted with, say, Fall Out Boy’s calculated lack of giving a shit. (A tangent, as is my wont – I was out a bar this weekend and they had a million TVs, all of which were showing music videos. This was only occasionally awesome, but for the most part they were showing Britney Spears and Fall Out Boy videos. Remember, I live in Los Angeles. But it was the most time I’ve spent listening to Fall Out Boy at one time where I had no control over changing the song. This band irrevocably blows. They must be stopped. How much do they fucking suck? Well, I saw a video of them covering Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” with John Mayer. The forces of evil are gathering, friends. If you are in a band, or thinking of starting a band, you must work to fight this with all your might. Gather up your guitars, learn to play them, and kick Fall Out Boy’s ass. I will help you.)

Dressy Bessy will always be my favorite Dressy Bessy album, but Holler and Stomp will probably move into second place – it’s a lot of fun and is more varied than its predecessor, Electrified. If you liked any Dressy Bessy album before, you will like Holler and Stomp. If you didn’t, you probably don’t like fun.

That’s pretty much all I have to say about Holler and Stomp. I dig it and I dig Dressy Bessy and I don’t care if the P-fork people snort derisively about it.

Sufjan Stevens still sucks.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson is Just One Dude

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson is friends with Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio. Mr. Malone helped Mr. Miles Davis Benjamin Franklin on a few tracks on MBAR’s eponymous debut. On a first listen, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson might strike you as a TVOTR album with more obvious instrumentation, but you’d be wrong about that and robbing yourself of a pretty rewarding listen.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, whose name must always be written out in its entirety (I’ve already broken laws with my “MBAR” thing in the preceding paragraph), is one broken-ass dude. At least he appears to be in his songs, and the way they sound, my guess is the dude ain’t frontin’.

There’s an underlying folk vibe to the album, and an underlying despair. Apparently, this album was recorded a while ago and then delayed while Mr. Robinson went through some of that deep, romantic-if-you’re-not-living-through-it personal trauma. Hearing Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson makes me glad he made it, but it also tells me that he just barely did.

The album is a shambolic beauty; it stumbles into your ears, somewhere between drunk, hungover, and maybe drunk again. It moans and mourns, it stomps and shouts, it has drunkenly misspelled song titles like “Who’s Lauging”. Robinson’s voice is a rich tenor, tinged by smoke and sorrow. Over the course of ten songs, he travels from a croon to a scream and back, sometimes within the same verse. Guitars fit and start in the background of most of the tunes, as if trying to pick their way among the wreckage without disturbing the narrating vocalist (is he dead or is he sleeping? Better to not find out).

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson is a quick trip, just ten songs, and it’s really a good thing. This is like I See A Darkness depressing; if it went on too long, all of Miles’ fans would be taking the Hemingway exit stage left. As sad as that sounds, the album isn’t the kind of cheesy emo-sad that makes me want to assault the musician for spewing it forth into the world. For being a mere 24 years of age, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson has been through some shit and come out the other side of it. He’s earned his world weariness and has, according to Spin magazine, already written two follow-ups to his debut. The lingering question, then, is: will happiness ruin his music? The answer is, of course it won’t. If this guy lives up to the staggering promise of his debut, he’s going to be one of the best songwriters of my generation (granted – my generation of songwriters is a pretty weak fucking field, but still; dude can write a tune). My guess is, however, that he’ll have to take his press with a grain of salt in order to accomplish that.

Everywhere At Once

“By the way people feel me/ you’d think I was titty” slant-rhymes Lyrics Born on “Hott 2 Deff,” a clever line in a song with an offensively deliberately misspelled title. He may be onto something, though. People, myself among them, really seem to dig this Bay Area MC even when he wanders off into trite territory (as on “Differences,” where he repeats over and over again, “I’m a dude,” which is funny at first, but not so much later on). Perhaps it’s because LB flows honestly and cleverly over some straight up funky beats. Everywhere At Once, his newest effort, is a blend of pop, hip-hop, and funk. It’s a party album, like all Lyrics Born records, and it goes down like an ice cold beverage on a hot afternoon.

For hip-hop purists, Lyrics Born is probably a bit cheesy, because he’s trying make really positive music and he tends to wear his George Clinton influence on his sleeve. Everywhere At Once is not going to change any minds on that front, but I’ve had a soft spot for this dude since Later That Day and, while Everywhere At Once is no Later That Day, it’s a fresh, fun record. Lyrics Born likes making music, making love, and does not like the current presidential administration (as evidenced on the extremely clunky “Do U Buy It?”).

Like all Lyrics Born offerings, Everywhere At Once is a little long and a lot skit-heavy. If you want aggressive hip-hop, throw on Pharoahe Monch (in fact, throw on Pharoahe Monch anyway); Lyrics Born is more like a hip-hop album you can put on for your girlfriend who doesn’t like hip-hop (as I have done a couple of times for my girlfriend).

Perhaps the perfect analogy is that Everywhere At Once is like a hard lemonade – you don’t usually want it, but every once in a while, it hits the right spot.