By Chris Carney
Formed in 2006 while expanding their minds at Columbia University, Vampire Weekend took their name from a short film made by singer Ezra Koenig. While the film appears clunky, amateurish and typical of college-made films, the band it helped spawn defies easy classification.
Heavily influenced by African pop music and American classical, Vampire Weekend’s sound is nearly impossible to categorize. Each measurement, opinion or label attached is quickly exposed as unfit or insufficiently wide.
Referring to their sound as “Upper West Side Soweto,” after the Johannesburg neighborhood, the band inspires emotions that run the gamut from happy to odd to bewildered. Listen to their self-titled debut and you just may feel like wrapping yourself in a tiger-print Snuggie while sipping some West African coffee.
Despite, or perhaps because of, their oddly varied influences, Vampire Weekend has been lauded with accolades—Spin named them the Best New Band of 2008 even before their debut hit the shelves. Christian Lander, infamous for his website Stuff White People Like, dubbed them the “whitest band” and Australian music magazine Triple J included four songs from their debut in their Top 100 for 2008.
Despite their sudden fame, the boys of Vampire Weekend haven’t let their accomplishments cloud them. Their second album, Contra, surged to the top of the Billboard charts, and just like that, they had gone from an obscure indie foursome to serving as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. They were now a band everybody either knew, wanted to know or was purposely ignoring with a “too cool for school” attitude.
Everyone has friends that wanted to hate Vampire Weekend, just as they’d previously done with fantasy football, Facebook and Pandora. One wonders just how long it’ll take before their iPods are blaring the joyous pop music of these Ivy League grads.
Vocalist Ezra Koenig may just be a reincarnation of Buddy Holly. His quick, staccato vocals and adrenaline-filled delivery are ultra-reminiscent of the horn-rimmed spectacled legend of the ’60s.
Like Holly, Vampire Weekend has reached the peak of fame very quickly and to date the burden of fame has been well worn. They’ve toured extensively with the likes of the Shins, are managed by the same group that helped the White Stripes dominate the world and have been featured in the Will Ferrell movie Step Brothers, the BBC show The Inbetweeners and on both Guitar Hero 5 and LEGO Rock Band.
Yes, Vampire Weekend has made it. They’ve crested the charts, become the darlings of the indie music crowd and likely been proposed to by innumerable hipster girls in every town they’ve performed in.
Not at all bad for four guys from the right side of the tracks whose musical career started with a humorous hip-hop band. Fans worldwide await their next push towards fame and fortune. Come along for the ride.
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