Rock and roll used to be dance music. In the early days of Chuck Berry and Little Richard people couldn’t help but begin tapping their feet seconds before moving and shaking it across a dimly lit barroom or music hall. Somewhere along the indie-rock-way fans stopped dancing and began staring blankly at the performers as if hypnotized. Somehow dancing became un-hip in our modern rock scene. Sure, we could blame the musicians, since rock and roll has seemingly dropped the “and roll” from its title over the years. But recently artists have attempted to make rock music danceable again. With songs from their self-titled debut full length, Brooklyn’s Vampire Weekend, hopefully, has found a way to drag the wallflowers from their “too cool” stations.
As musicians tend to do, the band does this by borrowing sounds from a wide array of international musical influences – like punk and African Pop – almost daring you to try not to dance. And like Franz Ferdinand a few years back, it’s surprisingly refreshing.
The band of Columbia University graduates, Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Christopher Tomson, and Chris Baio seemingly had a vision of a sound that would separate them from the rest of the indie rock world. They accomplish this with the African vibe that is obvious, partnered with a modernism that recalls The Police and other 80’s acts like The Squeeze and Elvis Costello.
These numerous comparisons and inspirations allowed the music blog world to place the band on a pedestal – before quickly knocking them off by naming them to a new genre titled “Prep Rock” (a reference to their Gap like appearance on stage) and disparaging them for being well educated. But no matter how much the band studied or how they dress there is something exciting and new about their sound.
“Mansard Roof” opens the album with strange keys and slow strings before a bounding drumbeat meets the steadying vocals of lead singer Koenig. The track is just over two minutes long and creates a necessity for the track that follows, the cleverly playful “Oxford Comma”. “Who gives a fuck about an Oxford Comma/I climbed to Dharamsala too”.
“M79”, “Bryn” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” perfectly fill the middle of the album and highlight the bands diversity – merging electronics and strings with old time musical styles. The opening guitar on “A-Punk” will instantly get you moving like in the old days of rock and roll, but the lyrics will also suck you in with their sly awkwardness, “His Honor drove southward seeking exotica/Down to the Pueblo huts of New Mexico/Cut his teeth on turquoise harmonicas”. Lyrically, there seems to be a repeated smart, off-kilter-ness that reflects the intelligence of the educated artists.
All of this makes for oddly sharp, danceable rock music that is original and fun.
So the bands education and fashion sense seems to be the one negative thing that spills from critic’s keyboards. And on these counts, even if this critic agreed with the others, you still shouldn’t be turning down your stereo on Vampire Weekend. You should be dancing. |