Photo: Courtesy Kyle Crockett.
When I was in high school, my chemistry teacher/dear friend introduced me to a young New York band with which she had a mutual connection. Their songs were catchy, texturally rich and full of lyrical virtuosity. There was tribal influence, New York elite influence, college 20-year-old influence. And there was baroque.
The pianist in me immediately took a liking to these young guns as they addressed high grammar, college crushes, rich women lounging on lawns and linens, and wasted days gone too fast, all to the tune of ornamental strings, harpsichords and organs offering an orchestral 1700 backbone to 2008 guitars, drums and subject matter. Five years later, Vampire Weekend released its third consecutive triumph, and perhaps the culmination of an entire generation’s cultural influence, “Modern Vampires of the City.”
Today’s musical world is under constant attack from critics who say there is nothing new — that we are a pop culture-obsessed generation making names through derivative drivel under the guise of “new.” I’ve always found fault with this theory, and even more so when considering what a group like Vampire Weekend has accomplished since 2008.
I recently found myself once again diving into their three albums, “Vampire Weekend” (2008), “Contra” (2010) and “Modern Vampires” (2013), and I noticed an unusual resemblance to another string of quality record production: The Band and its first three records, “Music from Big Pink” (1968), “The Band” (1969) and “Stage Fright” (1970), a musical and cultural triumvirate of the 20th century.
After gaining some notoriety as Bob Dylan’s supporting band, it was time for The Band to alert the world of the big musical secret of which we were almost entirely unaware. The result was three years of some of the best music to ever come from the 20th century. In the midst of drug-addled summers, hippies and bikers and a longing to be unique (which in turn made the entire hippie culture no more unique than the conformists from which they separated), The Band was somehow above it all.
Four Canadians and that zany old Arkansan Levon Helm captured the American spirit in a way that no popular recording artist had previously done. Beyond this, their music and subject matter affected every generation that followed, as they employed rock, R&B, soul, blues, country and folk in perfect juxtaposition, an idea that continues to dictate much of popular music. Further still, this was no long musical career accented by two or three legendary albums dispersed over 20 years. This was a band with so much creative energy that it took just three years to release its thrilling three-album stint.
Here’s the leap: Vampire Weekend has accomplished for its generation, and the generations to follow, what The Band accomplished for its. Furthermore, I think it may be the first time for such a musical feat to occur since that 1968 release. This is difficult to say, especially given similar moments from the likes of Velvet Underground and its 1967-1970 run (the old saying is that only about 1,000 people listened to VU, but they all started a band), or Big Star’s fantastic 1972-1974 marathon, or the Pixies’ game-changing “Come On Pilgrim,” “Surfer Rosa” and “Doolittle” from 1987-1989. This was the toughest one to argue against for me. If one listens closely to almost any rock band since the Pixies, he or she will hear fat Kim Deal bass lines, cryptic, screaming Black Francis lyrics or heavy, wailing Joey Santiago riffs.
However, it is Vampire Weekend that lit the beacon for the future of popular music. Since that seminal 2008 debut, the entire atmosphere of music and popular culture has evolved and grown stronger. All at once, the record set a higher standard for lyrical complexity (Messages written in the eaves? Argentines collapsing in defeat? Ion displacement?), awareness of world music cultures and the exploration of music’s most remote boundaries.
Since that release, VW’s music has enjoyed exponential success, and it is because of how the band tackled its first three records. Evolving as a musician is a fickle thing; the slightest misstep can completely topple a musician’s progress. Yet, to perfection, Vampire Weekend (and The Band before them) evolved as a creative entity while still finding new and exhilarating ways to stay true to their musical character as well as themselves.
In Nic Pizzolatto’s new HBO show, “True Detective,” Detective Rust Cohle states that “time is a flat circle.” This certainly supports the arguments of those who say the current generation is simply repeating what’s already been done; however, perhaps it’s not so simple. Time is a flat circle, but it is not Vampire Weekend’s music that is derivative; rather, it is the band’s impact. Beginning exactly 40 years after The Band’s “Music from Big Pink,” Vampire Weekend repeated what was already done: They changed not only music, but their entire culture, for good.
— Kyle Crockett
kacrocker@go.olemiss.edu
