Well well well. Vampire Weekend. Pretty good aren’t they?
It’s surprising how much of the press coverage surrounding Contra has focused on the issue of class. Vampire Weekend, in case you hadn’t noticed, are middle class. You might even want to describe them as (surely not?) upper-middle class. Defending the very notion of upper-middle-class-hood against god knows what anti-posh bogey has become the standard angle on the band. ‘They’re middle-class – and proud of it!’ scream the music press, with scarcely disguised glee. ‘They’re not afraid to wear preppy clothes, just like me!’ yelp public school kids up and down the land.
Let’s be absolutely crystal clear about this: there is nothing good about being middle class. If you are unlucky enough to be part of a class system, you should not brag about it, ever. If you are (like me) middle class, be proud of yourself, be proud of your many fantastic qualities, be proud of your beautiful and variegated personality, but do not be proud that you are middle class. Be ashamed, be left wing, and do something about it.
But as I was saying, Vampire Weekend are pretty good. With a vigour and a clarity that distinguishes them from their peers, they are the natural successors to the Strokes’ brand of refined retro-minimalism, only with added rhythmic sophistication, and even a hint of mild progressiveness thrown into the mix (although, in the main they are merely pastiching … sorry, being influenced by, artists a few years down the line – Orange Juice, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel – from the Strokes’ palette of Television, Ramones, The Clash). Their eponymous debut album of 2008 slayed all comers (myself included) with its timely afro stylings, its neo-classical arrangements, and its startling proliferation of sweet, sweet melodies. ‘Oxford Comma’ was the best.
So where does second album Contra find them? Well, in a very similar place, overall. In terms of the actual songwriting – the melodic line, lyrics etc – I can’t really think of anything at all that has changed from Vampire Weekend. This isn’t in itself a bad thing, of course. ‘White Sky’, ‘Holiday’, ‘California English’, ‘Run’, ‘Cousins’: all cracking little tunes.
Besides, when it comes to the sound as a whole, there have been a number of notable, if subtle, evolutions. Some autotune turns up on ‘California English’, and fortunately Ezra Koenig’s voice is strong and mellifluous enough to make it work. ‘Giving up the Gun’ features a smattering of eighties-ish ambience, a Daft Punk-style production job that rhymes nicely with the ‘Boys of Summer’/’High and Dry’ lyric (‘When I was 17 / I had wrists like steel / and I felt complete …’).
Indeed, synths and programmed percussion parts abound on nearly every track; Contra is a step up in terms of arrangement. The mid-album duo of ‘Taxi Cab’ and ‘Run’ – both of which are downtempo and reverb-heavy – offers a vivid demonstration of this new guitar-light approach, a contrast to the dry-as-a-bone production aesthetic on Vampire Weekend.
Two magic moments:
1) 1:06 into ‘Holiday’, the ‘A-Punk’-recalling clamour dies down. A four-to-the-floor kick pounds away, Koenig sings something about his female subject having been ‘a vegetarian since the invasion’, and guitarist Rostam Batmanglij deftly scatters a series of pristine raindrop notes over the whole thing. It sounds like Steve Reich, The Beatles, Sunny Ade, and Bach all rolled into one.
2) 0:42 into ‘Run’ (and sporadically throughout the tune), the band take the brave step of inserting an evocative Mariachi trumpet motif where the chorus should be. This will stick in your head like a bastard, I promise. There’s also an awesome Moroder-ish synth part running all the way through, especially tasty at around 3:15.
All this aside, it’s difficult to imagine that Contra will have anything like the same impact as its predecessor. Like, say, a Blur record, it sounds a good deal more impressive on a first listen than on subsequent plays. The lyrics are mostly pretty forgettable, and the melodic range is relatively limited and samey, even if it is, admittedly, a pretty good melody that’s being recycled over and over. If I had to put money on it, I’d say this is an album with limited longevity, lacking in depth, just a tad too much levity to make it anything other than an utterly worthwhile and energizing suite of pop tunes.
Underwhelming? Slightly. Fun? Hell yeah. Is that enough? Probably not.
But that trumpet bit on ‘Run’ is fucking class.
AN
