Album Title
Vampire Weekend
Artist Icon Vampire Weekend (2007)
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2:07
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Back Cover
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3D Case
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First Released

Calendar Icon 2007

Genre

Genre Icon Indie

Mood

Mood Icon Cheerful

Style

Style Icon Rock/Pop

Theme

Theme Icon ---

Tempo

Speed Icon Medium

Release Format

Release Format Icon Album

Record Label Release

Speed Icon XL Recordings

World Sales Figure

Sales Icon 0 copies

Album Description
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The band's first album Vampire Weekend was released January 29, 2008. A success in the US and UK, it peaked at number 15 on the UK Albums Chart and number 17 on the Billboard 200. Four singles were released from the album; while "A-Punk" peaked at number 25 on the Billboard Modern rock chart and number 55 on the UK Singles Chart, "Oxford Comma" peaked at number 38 in the UK. "A-Punk" was ranked the 4th on Rolling Stone's list of Best Songs in 2008. "A-Punk" was also used to open the Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly feature Step Brothers, and featured in the UK television show, The Inbetweeners, and the video games Guitar Hero 5, Just Dance 2 and Lego Rock Band.
During the early stages of their career, substantial media attention surrounded Vampire Weekend's incorporation of African pop sounds into American music, but despite an admitted love of African music, and Koenig's explicit mentioning of 1980's Madagascar pop music as a source of inspiration for the band, Vampire Weekend has always maintained that they are not "an African band". Koenig went so far as to say in interviews that Vampire Weekend feared being perceived as part of what he saw as a western trend of "fetishizing" world music, and would be hesitant to follow so directly in the footsteps of former greats such as Paul Simon in collaborating with and making too great a deal of foreign musicianship in American pop.
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User Album Review
Vampire Weekend are the latest band to unexpectedly defy genre and geographic expectations. Since the turn of the millennium, New York groups have reworked proto-punk sounds popularised by The Velvet Underground (The Strokes, Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Holy Hail), or rubbery punk-funk (The Rapture, !!!, Radio 4, LCD Soundsystem). But on this remarkable debut the latest NYC hopefuls clearly draw from a far deeper well of influences.
The most overt feature of the VW sound is the refreshing adoption of Afrobeat percussion. This alone differentiates the quartet from their peers, but when added to a multitude of nautical references and other, often ambiguous, lyrics about delightfully esoteric subjects, the results are constantly rewarding.
What other act would write about punctuation (Oxford Comma), loft conversions (Mansard Roof), the link between rich US college fashions and Victorian British Imperialism (Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa and possibly others)? Only a band with the balls to make a 2008 version of Paul Simon’s Graceland, crossed with moments of art-disco cool that namechecks Peter Gabriel, Louis Vuitton, at least two types of English tea and Manhattan bus routes. And that's not counting M79 and The Kids Don't Stand A Chance, whose harpsichords and string sections would be more at home in the court of Louis XIV than a 'rock' album.
Some listeners may be utterly baffled by a record including lines like Walcott's "The lobster's claw is sharp as knives/ evil feasts on human lives" and Mansard Roof's "The Argentines collapse in defeat/ the admiralty surveys the remnants of the fleet". Some may also feel that the material sails too far into jaunty waters on occasion. But minor quibbles aside, clearly this quartet isn’t interested in tired posturing or being cool for the sake of it. What bursts from the speakers is compellingly warm and joyful. Vampire Weekend have crafted an educated, endlessly imaginative and different piece of work that's arguably the first truly great album of the year. And you won't even need to wear a crucifix or garlic clove to hear it.


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