I was just thinking that I really ought to balance out tonight’s posts with at least one music-related one when, as if meant to inspire me, a Vampire Weekend track was used on BBC3. Since the album was recommended to me as one to consider for the Best of 2008 I’ve been listening to Vampire Weekend a lot. At first my feeling was that whilst the blend of off-beat New York indie rock and Paul Simon-esque African rhythms was cute, it was a bit forced: almost wacky.
But as I’ve listened to it more and more I’ve really come to love Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut album. It’s soulful, intelligent, witty and utterly, utterly lovely. It shouldn’t really work and yet it absolutely does. There are also almost no duff tracks on the album so picking one to post could be quite a tricky one if it weren’t for the fact that I stumbled across the video for Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa yesterday and it’s brilliant.
It’s like the band are the stars of an early 80s teen flick, like Some Kind Of Wonderful or Pretty In Pink and the soundtrack is being produced by The Bhundu Boys & Talking Heads. Admittedly that may not sound like anything attractive to most people, but then most people would rather listen to the X Factor version of Hallelujah than Jeff Buckley’s, so go figure.