For a while, in the late For two-thousands, it was extremely fun to dunk on Vampire Weekend. Formed at Columbia University in 2006, the band made perky, bleating indie rock about Cape Cod, mansard roofs, and Oxford commas. The singer and guitarist Ezra Koenig wore khakis and sometimes loosely knotted a sweater around his shoulders, a look that everyone knows is the unofficial uniform of rich, scummy boyfriends in high-school movies. The band's vibe was preppy but lightly debauched, somewhere between "Dead Poets Society" and "Less Than Zero." Vampire Weekend felt slightly out of step with the arch, fuzzy, forward-thinking indie rock of the time. Its music was polished and sunny, a little cocky, with melodic sensibilities indebted to the dynamic, sensitive songs and songwriters of the seventies and eighties: the Beat's "Save It for Later," Paul Simon's "Under African Skies," Harry Nilsson's "Gotta Get Up." "
The band's second album, "Contra, released in 2010, débuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The songs were idiosyncratic but had shockingly broad appeal. That winter, the single "Holiday," a reggae-inflected rock track that, for better or worse, could have been airlifted from a third-wave ska compilation, appeared in two major television commercials at the same time. More albums followed-"Modern Vampires of the City," in 2013, and "Father of the Bride," in 2019.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der April 08, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der April 08, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
GET IT TOGETHER
In the beginning was the mob, and the mob was bad. In Gibbon’s 1776 “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the Roman mob makes regular appearances, usually at the instigation of a demagogue, loudly demanding to be placated with free food and entertainment (“bread and circuses”), and, though they don’t get to rule, they sometimes get to choose who will.
GAINING CONTROL
The frenemies who fought to bring contraception to this country.
REBELS WITH A CAUSE
In the new FX/Hulu series “Say Nothing,” life as an armed revolutionary during the Troubles has—at least at first—an air of glamour.
AGAINST THE CURRENT
\"Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,\" at Soho Rep, and \"Gatz,\" at the Public.
METAMORPHOSIS
The director Marielle Heller explores the feral side of child rearing.
THE BIG SPIN
A district attorney's office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries.
THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED
I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris’s loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think.
HOLD YOUR TONGUE
Can the world's most populous country protect its languages?
A LONG WAY HOME
Ordinarily, I hate staying at someone's house, but when Hugh and I visited his friend Mary in Maine we had no other choice.
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
