Year: 2010
Label: XL Recordings
Producer: Rostam Batmanglij
Running Time: 36.6 mins
It’s impossible to talk about Vampire Weekend’s sophomore album, Contra, without addressing the haters. For every starry-eyed fan who loved the peppy guitar-pop on the band’s self-titled debut album, there seems to be an equally vociferous music fan, blogger or cynic ready to shout them down. While this kind of argumentative discourse is nothing new, Vampire Weekend’s music has hit a nerve within the music listening community, becoming one of the most polarizing new bands in recent memory. All this has resulted in a very volatile environment for Contra to be released into.
The critics have responded by taking an extremely defensive stance about the band’s music. Despite the thousands of naysayers who popped out of the woodwork after VW’s debut was released, very few music critics ever seemed to join their ranks. That album was an unchecked critical success, currently clocking in as the fourth-most acclaimed album of 2008. However, rather than taking an “I-told-you-so” attitude, the band’s champions are already trying to head the detractors off at the pass. Pitchfork’s Mike Powell projects that those with “ferocious objections” to the first VW album will continue to “hate [Contra] with a vigor,” while John Murphy at MusicOMH compares the band to fellow NY hypemongers the Strokes, who famously failed to live up to their promise after one acclaimed album.
However, the reviews for Contra are overwhelmingly positive. Most publications (including the behemoths of Rolling Stone, SPIN and NME) have given it a fairly safe 80%, while Pitchfork has lauded it with a bold 8.6/10 and a coveted Best New Music nod. Paste falls in line with an 8.7. The general critical sense is best summed up by Paste’s Jason Killingsworth when he says that Contra proves that Vampire Weekend was “no fluke.” Since most of these critics loved the band from the word “go,” Contra seems to be only reinforcing their existing beliefs.
This is a bit odd, since, by the critics’ own admission, Contra is a wildly different record than its predecessor. While it seems that VW’s first album will go down in history as a fusion of “Paul Simon’s Graceland with the touchstones of preppy ennui” (Rolling Stone’s Will Dana), Contra finds the band jettisoning much of their established sound (clean, thin guitar leads and spare production) in favor of a more lush sound, built upon keyboards and a few hip-hop influences. Most critics have also noted that the lyrical themes have changed. As Powell points out, “these lines don’t scan as being about privilege or money, but about people struggling with their social status.” I agree strongly with this assessment. Contra’s biggest edge over Vampire Weekend is that it (mostly) drops the class-warfare-baiting and lets more universal emotions fuel the songs.
I add that parenthetical because Ezra Koenig’s lyrics are still threatening to collapse under their own multisyllabic weight. John Murphy breaks from the critical party line by (correctly) observing that “it’s impossible to deny there’s a bit of smugness to Vampire Weekend that irks somewhat.” Murphy points to the opening song, “Horchata”, as a prime example of this sense that “Vampire Weekend are cleverer than you,” with its nonsensical opening couplet of “In December, drinking horchata/I’d look psychotic in a balaclava.” While SPIN’s John Dolan seems far too willing to accept Koenig’s shenanigans (“A ruling-class dude would look silly enjoying his leisure-hour drink dressed like a Chechen terrorist”), I feel that Murphy has pin-pointed Vampire Weekend’s biggest weakness. They can only hide behind big, flashy words for so long.
Full disclosure time: I am one of those rabid detractors who flew off the rails when Vampire Weekend took the world by storm a few years ago. I still find most of that album grating and shallow, while the Graceland comparisons feel superficial at best to me. That said, I honestly feel that Contra is a major improvement. At least four songs here (“Taxi Cab”, “Run”, “Diplomat’s Son” and “I Think Ur A Conta”) are songs I can say I honestly like, while there are a few more I find pleasant in smaller doses. Again, the turning point for me, as a listener, has been hearing Koenig inject rawer emotions into his lyrics, best heard on the hushed “I Think Ur A Conta”, which ends with the singer professing some very complicated love. It’s a song haunted by betrayal and lies, promises kept and broken, which finally ends with Koenig’s whispered dedication that “I just wanted you.” As cliché as it might be, I find these emotional risks much more compelling than the flippant ridiculousness of “who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma.”
Contra also reveals keyboardist/producer Rostam Batmanglij as the group’s leading musical force. After showing promise with his surprising Discovery project last year, Batmanglij has applied the same gently driving electronics to his main band, with quality results. The bouncy “White Sky” provides a nice bridge between the older VW style, while the M.I.A.-sampling “Diplomat’s Son” just drops you into the deep end of this new, guitar-phobic world. Even stranger is the slow, reserved “Taxi Cab”, which, as Killingsworth says, “adopts an emotional vulnerability and depth.” While such a generalized phrase like that would usually just be critical filler, it actually describes the song’s impact quite well.
The album’s weakest moments are the ones that flash back to the debut album’s lightweight, breezy guitar-led fluff. “Cousins” is all energy, but no substance, while “California English”, despite Pitchfork’s best attempts to read meaning into its lyrics, is the same kind of hyper-ironic bullshit that rubbed me the wrong way on VW’s debut. “Giving Up The Gun” is a more interesting case, with its radio-ready drive and keyboards, but at almost five minutes long, feels unwieldy and in need of some serious editing. Topping all this off, we’ve got the forgettable “Holiday”, which, at barely more than two minutes, could probably have been left off the album without anyone shedding any tears.
Ultimately, Contra is a step-forward for the band, all while awkwardly keeping the other foot planted in their past. It’s a “transitional album” if I’ve ever heard one and I agree with the astute Murphy at MusicOMH when he says that “album number three could well be the classic that they’ve always threatened to make.” They’ve partially excised the demons of their debut and are rapidly finding a unique and compelling voice all their own. Vampire Weekend have risked more with Contra than I think anyone truly expected and are in line to be rewarded handsomely for it.
Final Grade:
Label: XL Recordings
Producer: Rostam Batmanglij
Running Time: 36.6 mins
It’s impossible to talk about Vampire Weekend’s sophomore album, Contra, without addressing the haters. For every starry-eyed fan who loved the peppy guitar-pop on the band’s self-titled debut album, there seems to be an equally vociferous music fan, blogger or cynic ready to shout them down. While this kind of argumentative discourse is nothing new, Vampire Weekend’s music has hit a nerve within the music listening community, becoming one of the most polarizing new bands in recent memory. All this has resulted in a very volatile environment for Contra to be released into.
The critics have responded by taking an extremely defensive stance about the band’s music. Despite the thousands of naysayers who popped out of the woodwork after VW’s debut was released, very few music critics ever seemed to join their ranks. That album was an unchecked critical success, currently clocking in as the fourth-most acclaimed album of 2008. However, rather than taking an “I-told-you-so” attitude, the band’s champions are already trying to head the detractors off at the pass. Pitchfork’s Mike Powell projects that those with “ferocious objections” to the first VW album will continue to “hate [Contra] with a vigor,” while John Murphy at MusicOMH compares the band to fellow NY hypemongers the Strokes, who famously failed to live up to their promise after one acclaimed album.
However, the reviews for Contra are overwhelmingly positive. Most publications (including the behemoths of Rolling Stone, SPIN and NME) have given it a fairly safe 80%, while Pitchfork has lauded it with a bold 8.6/10 and a coveted Best New Music nod. Paste falls in line with an 8.7. The general critical sense is best summed up by Paste’s Jason Killingsworth when he says that Contra proves that Vampire Weekend was “no fluke.” Since most of these critics loved the band from the word “go,” Contra seems to be only reinforcing their existing beliefs.
This is a bit odd, since, by the critics’ own admission, Contra is a wildly different record than its predecessor. While it seems that VW’s first album will go down in history as a fusion of “Paul Simon’s Graceland with the touchstones of preppy ennui” (Rolling Stone’s Will Dana), Contra finds the band jettisoning much of their established sound (clean, thin guitar leads and spare production) in favor of a more lush sound, built upon keyboards and a few hip-hop influences. Most critics have also noted that the lyrical themes have changed. As Powell points out, “these lines don’t scan as being about privilege or money, but about people struggling with their social status.” I agree strongly with this assessment. Contra’s biggest edge over Vampire Weekend is that it (mostly) drops the class-warfare-baiting and lets more universal emotions fuel the songs.
I add that parenthetical because Ezra Koenig’s lyrics are still threatening to collapse under their own multisyllabic weight. John Murphy breaks from the critical party line by (correctly) observing that “it’s impossible to deny there’s a bit of smugness to Vampire Weekend that irks somewhat.” Murphy points to the opening song, “Horchata”, as a prime example of this sense that “Vampire Weekend are cleverer than you,” with its nonsensical opening couplet of “In December, drinking horchata/I’d look psychotic in a balaclava.” While SPIN’s John Dolan seems far too willing to accept Koenig’s shenanigans (“A ruling-class dude would look silly enjoying his leisure-hour drink dressed like a Chechen terrorist”), I feel that Murphy has pin-pointed Vampire Weekend’s biggest weakness. They can only hide behind big, flashy words for so long.
Full disclosure time: I am one of those rabid detractors who flew off the rails when Vampire Weekend took the world by storm a few years ago. I still find most of that album grating and shallow, while the Graceland comparisons feel superficial at best to me. That said, I honestly feel that Contra is a major improvement. At least four songs here (“Taxi Cab”, “Run”, “Diplomat’s Son” and “I Think Ur A Conta”) are songs I can say I honestly like, while there are a few more I find pleasant in smaller doses. Again, the turning point for me, as a listener, has been hearing Koenig inject rawer emotions into his lyrics, best heard on the hushed “I Think Ur A Conta”, which ends with the singer professing some very complicated love. It’s a song haunted by betrayal and lies, promises kept and broken, which finally ends with Koenig’s whispered dedication that “I just wanted you.” As cliché as it might be, I find these emotional risks much more compelling than the flippant ridiculousness of “who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma.”
Contra also reveals keyboardist/producer Rostam Batmanglij as the group’s leading musical force. After showing promise with his surprising Discovery project last year, Batmanglij has applied the same gently driving electronics to his main band, with quality results. The bouncy “White Sky” provides a nice bridge between the older VW style, while the M.I.A.-sampling “Diplomat’s Son” just drops you into the deep end of this new, guitar-phobic world. Even stranger is the slow, reserved “Taxi Cab”, which, as Killingsworth says, “adopts an emotional vulnerability and depth.” While such a generalized phrase like that would usually just be critical filler, it actually describes the song’s impact quite well.
The album’s weakest moments are the ones that flash back to the debut album’s lightweight, breezy guitar-led fluff. “Cousins” is all energy, but no substance, while “California English”, despite Pitchfork’s best attempts to read meaning into its lyrics, is the same kind of hyper-ironic bullshit that rubbed me the wrong way on VW’s debut. “Giving Up The Gun” is a more interesting case, with its radio-ready drive and keyboards, but at almost five minutes long, feels unwieldy and in need of some serious editing. Topping all this off, we’ve got the forgettable “Holiday”, which, at barely more than two minutes, could probably have been left off the album without anyone shedding any tears.
Ultimately, Contra is a step-forward for the band, all while awkwardly keeping the other foot planted in their past. It’s a “transitional album” if I’ve ever heard one and I agree with the astute Murphy at MusicOMH when he says that “album number three could well be the classic that they’ve always threatened to make.” They’ve partially excised the demons of their debut and are rapidly finding a unique and compelling voice all their own. Vampire Weekend have risked more with Contra than I think anyone truly expected and are in line to be rewarded handsomely for it.
Final Grade:
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