Word: bandness
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Outside the classroom, Harvard seems like fertile ground for artistic growth. The campus boasts 120 extracurricular arts associations, from the Harvard Klezmer Band to the Lowell House Society of Russian Bell Ringers. But inside the classroom, fields of creativity can sometimes lie fallow. Most courses in the arts keep a safe theoretical distance from artistic production, and thus fail to provide students with a practical understanding of their disciplines. Hands-on courses—including courses in Visual and Environmental Studies or Creative Writing—often require previous experience and applications...
Vampire Weekend are a rather unremarkable band. Ezra Koenig and company are little more than a few slightly preppy guys who got together at Columbia and started writing charming, inoffensive pop songs. Their most remarkable feature, their influence by African music, has in fact been vastly overstated and, given the recent success of internationalist groups like Yeasayer and The Very Best, it’s much less novel than it was back...
These imperfections only serve to reinforce what is clear even in the album’s better moments: Vampire Weekend are not a “great” band. “Contra” is overall a decent album, and finds just the right balance of advancing and holding ground to prevent a sophomore slump. This pragmatism and the group’s talents have seen them achieve considerable success. Just don’t expect them to ascend to anything more remarkable...
...Contra” is in many ways very similar to the band’s self-titled debut. The opener, “Horchata,” quickly proves that the band is quite content to continue in the same style that first brought them success. The lyrics appropriately hint at the need to accept one’s limitations, Koenig singing, “Oh you had it but oh no you lost it / Looking back you shouldn’t have fought it.” The song steadily builds momentum, incorporating woodwind and strings that subtly bring...
...Prom Queen” is one of the worst examples of Wayne’s lyrics running directly against the musical background. The music is forceful and angry as an electric guitar pounds out a progression identical to that found on the punk-metal band System of a Down’s 2001 hit single, “Chop Suey,” and Wayne’s slow, aggressive, auto-tuned drawl recalls Marilyn Manson. On top of this, Wayne tells an unbearably trite story about high school in disappointingly simplistic language. Explaining how his feelings for the prom...