Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

lol when Koenig says "You've got the luck of a Kennedy" you gotta wonder if it's praise

Damn me if Hannah Hunt isn't used in Girls.

cause this orthodox girl fell in love with the guy at the falafel shop / and why not? / should she have averted her eyes and stared at the laminated poster of the dome of the rock?

Early favorite is Hudson.

arrrgh idk if they will ever top the s/t

Contra did.

It is a bit premature, but to me MVOTC tops Contra, which I preferred to the s/t.

i can't rate this album yet but it's great and honestly since i love their music and don't really give a shit about rating albums from best to worst who cares

you're surrounded on either side by critics

ok fine u got me 8.765942/10 imho but i need to listen a few more times to make sure

On two listens (ONLY ON TWO LISTENS), this isn't as good as either of the first two, but still excellent.

The asides are goofy but I can forgive them

Which songs would you consider asides?

I mean the spoken word bits sprinkled throughout

They work because I can imagine Ezra diffidently brushing an errant lock aside while singing.

gosh, Hannah Hunt

I like to imagine the band listening to the Buckingham songs on Mirage obsessively while recording this album.

man remember when people were saying they'd only have the first album and then vanish

remember mad Clap Your Hands Say Yeah comparisons and such

Listening to Hudson. Maybe I wasn't paying attention to the past albums but this is sounding like an ambitious, mature album. I wasn't expecting something like this because I didn't take them very seriously the first time around.

It is ironically the most fun I ever had listening to an album by them.

yeah, that's pretty much exactly how I feel about it. No clue how much staying power it'll have but who gives a shit, I'm really enjoying it now.

I like to imagine the band listening to the Buckingham songs on Mirage obsessively while recording this album.

"eyes of the world" vs. "step"

Tim knows how to poke at my e-zones.

I haven't heard the rest yet but "ya hey" is amazing.
it's funny cos it kinda makes me think of their joshua tree moment !

Second half of this record in bed at night gave me high school chills

Excited to listen to this - I bought and quickly forgot about Contra on release but then I recently pulled it out during one of those recent freaky snow storms and it sounded fantastic.

Loved the first two but think this is even better. To go from A-Punk to Ya Hey and still sound like themselves is some achievement and the lyrics have a weight that wasn't there before. If you string the three albums together they trace the emotional arc between the ages of 20 and 27 to perfection.

I agree - this album is tremendous and at least as good as (if not better than) the last two.

yeah, I don't know how the rest of the new album is but "ya hey" is very impressive in terms of depth and maturity in songwriting. I enjoy the first album with its cute lightness and silliness but this is something else (I have skipped the second though so they might have evolved a lot in-between). in other words, that's some heavy shit !

the chirping vocal in "Ya Hey" is the worst though

Agree, never need to hear that again

however I love the organ sound on "Everlasting Arms."

I appreciate how QUIET some of this is as opposed to say , Bankrupt.

gorgeous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ps6TjI7ws0

I don't know how they operate so I might be mistaken here but to me this is first and foremost incredible work by Batmanglij.

Koenig's quiet riff under the organ, the bass = excellent.

the ballads on this aren't totally my jam but yeah this is pretty fucking good

"hudson" kinda dire tho

so is the one that sounds like Animal Collective

"diane young" is fucking dreadful

Annoyed the hell out of me at first.

Me too, and I love it now.

really like the chirping in "ya hey," it's just a neat trebly texture that already yelpy ezra can actually play against

the mirage-era buckingham comparison has caused me to enjoy this album even more, thanks tim

think of the first 15 seconds of "Eyes of the World," then play "Unbelievers," Brad.

"Diane Young" is a dehumanized (a-human?) take on Tusk's "That's Enough For Me" or "The Ledge," except it took the Mac a million bucks to sound that way.

wow otm

only heard "Diane Young" for the first time today & I love it

There's a Diane in Mirage too

Love the way Diane Young turns into Don't Lie.

Finger Back is very Lindsey Buck/Tusk sounding.