Vampire Weekend

The Very Best

Gary Clark Jr.+Givers+Alice Smith

Princeton

Reveling In Social Anxiety with Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend

The Suburbs and Contra contemplate little pink polos for you and me

Vampire Weekend's New iTunes EP Includes Their Cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Goin' Down"

​Any last-minute digital-music shoppers out there are hereby advised that there's a new six-song Vampire Weekend EP up on iTunes today, mostly reprising their own work but including the whimsically bloopy cover of Springsteen's "I'm Goin' Down" that surfaced earlier this year. Given that the B ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? Five SOTC Critics Discuss.

Great song, at least​Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: myself, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. Let us acknowledge at the onset that we are ripping this off fr ... More >>

Was 2010 The Best Year For Music Ever? Redeeming M.I.A.

Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week! ​Dear Rob, Sean, Rich, and Maura, I believe, as per ... More >>

The 10 Biggest Music Stories of 2010

Ah M.I.A., it just wasn't your year, was it? Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​In 2010, Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire both had #1 records. LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, MGMT, the National, M.I.A, and Sufjan Stevens all had albums debut in the top ten. Kanye West joined Twitter. Drake started a riot in New ... More >>

Download Rockapella -- Yes, That Rockapella -- Covering Vampire Weekend's "A-Punk"

​Well this is just delightful. Rockapella, everyone's favorite Carmen Sandiego-locating vocal crew, are evidently still in business, and aim to remain there by covering "relevant" alt. artists like our good friends Vampire Weekend, who sonically traverse the globe in a flippant, maddening mann ... More >>

The Appeal Of Vampire Weekend's Contra Cover, Explained

​It has triggered a high-profile lawsuit, of course, but even before then, Vampire Weekend's blonde-in-a-Polo-shirt found-Polaroid-ish image for Contra was, like it or not, the most compelling and iconic album cover of the year, if now also the most expensive. Why, exactly, does a random photo ... More >>

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, on Getting Sued: "Given It's Our First Time We Just Want To Do It Properly"

​And so the oft-bemused back and forth between unwitting Contra cover model Ann Kirsten Kennis and the band she's suing, Vampire Weekend, continues. VW singer Ezra Koenig commented on the controversy last week via emoticon; Kennis, meanwhile, spoke from behind the shield of a lawyer. Now thoug ... More >>

Vampire Weekend's "Holiday" Video Is An Excellent Counterpoint To This Whole M.I.A. Thing

Vampire Weekend - New Music - More Music Videos So here's Vampire Weekend's video for "Holiday," a fairly unremarkable "prancing around in wigs doing rich-boy shit" tableau, but you have to admit that it surfacing today, just as M.I.A. rather inelegantly deals with the fallout from the Times Sunday ... More >>

The National's High Violet Sold 51,000 Copies Last Week

​For context, Vampire Weekend sold 120,000 copies of Contra, good for a #1 debut; the National, 50K copies of High Violet later, just attained their best chart spot ever, at #3. (2007's Boxer only reached #68.) Working against them? The fact that their record came out in May, rather than Janu ... More >>

Asher Roth Has A New Mixtape Called Seared Foie Gras With Quince And Cranberry

​Continuing on that oh-fuck-it Vampire Weekend class-baiting route, I see, and why not. Everyone's favorite white rapper is back at it, folks: The first three tracks are "Muddy Swim Trunks," "Toni Braxton," and "Pubic Garden," which triangulates things well enough. Download it here.

'Juilliard Annual Student Composers Recital'

An Interview With tUnE-yArDs: 'Get People's Attention or Die'

An occasionally embarrassing chat with the one-woman feral folk sensation

Live: Vampire Weekend Stage A Physically And Emotionally Grueling Blowout At United Palace Theatre

Vampire Weekend/Titus Andronicus United Palace Theatre Sunday, January 17 I personally do not see anyone wearing the $30 bright-yellow "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" scarf available at Vampire Weekend's merch table -- and believe me, I'm looking -- but later it's rumored they're completely sold out, so ... More >>

Vampire Weekend May Very Well Have the #1 Album In The Country Next Week

​So says Billboard, who we consider credible on this topic. Maura notes that a January release date surely helps, and just now Ke$ha did the grunt work of knocking off Susan Boyle. But still: Vampire Weekend. #1. In a land beyond the Internet. Haters intent on preventing this had better go buy ... More >>

Vampire Weekend's Contra Blitz Begins: First Letterman, Then California, Then Barnes & Noble (For Free)

The media assault for Vampire Weekend's violently anticipated sophomore release Contra, explored favorably at length in this week's Voice, has officially begun. Last night, the yacht-core clean-shaves dropped a neat rendition of their Plinko-pop single "Cousins" onto Letterman (video above), for w ... More >>

Operation Ivy League: On Vampire Weekend's Vastly Bewildering Contra

It's definitely weirder, and definitely better.

Stream Vampire Weekend's Contra

​It's out next Tuesday, but Vampire Weekend are getting a head start on pumping their sophomore record, Contra, out into the world. The entire album's on MySpace now, free of charge. Pair your listen with the incongruously casual-yet-featuring-a-fullish-string-section "Cousins" performance the ... More >>

Vampire Weekend Vogue Shoot Mercifully Neck Scarf Free

Yeah, that's right, we're talking about you, Rostam. Scans via Stereogum​Will Vampire Weekend lose their unofficial Polo endorsement? Is this the end of MGMT's scarf, headband, and sunglasses-sponsorship deal with Beacon's Closet? Will Beirut's Zach Condon lose his humble gypsy cred by standin ... More >>

Today Is the Day Fucked Up's "Do They Know It's Christmas" Cover Arrives

​The first and hopefully last time we'll spend a morning typing "Do They Know It's Christmas" into iTunes. Matador promises that the long awaited Band Aid cover, featuring what Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham described to Pitchfork as "the best and the worst of the music industry," will hit ... More >>

Exercises in Viral-to-Street Promotion: Vampire Weekend Contra Edition

Okay, Vampire Weekend. You got us. Slapped on a tagged mailbox on the loiterers' corner of North 7th and Bedford, the faux-sorority girl with the blank stare proved to be such a weird visual deja vu that a stop-and-look was in order. Why is she so familiar? Did she die recently? Is this an unsign ... More >>

Play Guitar the Vampire Weekend Way

And now, Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig will show you how to play "A-Punk," using only your first, second, and fourth fingers. Modern Bride probably would not have folded if they had invested more time in guitar lessons. Just saying. Bonus: the National's "Fake Empire" and "Slow Show," below. The h ... More >>

Behold, A New Vampire Weekend Song: "Horchata"

​The punchline to the clock that was counting down over at Vampire Weekend's website all day. Bonus points if you can figure out all the rhymes these guys spin off the titular name of the delicious Mexican drink before even listening. The answer may or may not involve a mask you might wear whe ... More >>

Princeton+Phil & the Osophers+Ice Palace

On the Very Best's "Rain Dance," Featuring M.I.A.

Last year, Malawian pop singer Esau Mwamwaya and the production duo Radioclit linked up for Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit Are the Very Best, a marvel of a mixtape that ran through versions of everything from Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" to M.I.A.'s "Boyz." The tape reflected a deep fam ... More >>

Sound of the City Officially Rejected from VW Bugs Vampire Weekend Cover Band

You may have already heard that the meme-baiting Vampire Weekend cover band will be staffed by four Princetonians and will be named "The VW Bugs." We, unfortunately, found this fact out the hard way: through brutal, real-world rejection. Wanting nothing more than to pretend to be the guy who prete ... More >>

Risk-Taking with Vampire Weekend, Wells Tower, John Wray, and the Happy Ending Series at Joe's Pub

The official theme of last night's Happy Ending Music and Reading Series at Joe's Pub was "taking risks." Host Amanda Stern credited this idea to musical guests Vampire Weekend, claiming that she'd polled disparate subjects (her landlord, a 311 operator, a physicist, novelists John Wray and Arthur ... More >>

Vampire Weekend To Play Happy Ending Series, Hopefully Re-Cover Blitz

Oh--is it summertime again already? If the sight of Colson Whitehead reading aloud haikus about Kiefer Sutherland's 24 at last night's Happy Ending Music and Reading Series wasn't a convincing enough case for the perennially killer event, Amanda Stern announced from the stage last night that the mu ... More >>

Notes on the Biz (What's Left of It)

On metal, genre-based critical bias, layoffs, industry hysteria, and the Loudness Wars

The People vs. Vampire Weekend

How a band so polite and so rapturous inspired that much hatred

Vampire Weekend Shirt Watch: Opening Ceremony Edition

Spank Rock Wild Style No Show Theory: "Charity Rate" Not Worth Getting Out of Bed?

I Knew M.I.A. Was Pregnant Before You

The Teenagers Are Grade-A Asshole Material

Vampire Weekend Pants Watch: Ezra Koenig's New Shorts, New Song

Interview: Chris Baio of Vampire Weekend

The Quarterly Report: Best Singles of 2008 Thus Far

The Quarterly Report: Best Albums of 2008 Thus Far

No Context: The Teenagers Live at Mercury Lounge

Live: Vampire Weekend, Not Sucking

Live: Vampire Weekend at the Bowery Ballroom

Vampire Weekend: Hated On Mostly

Please Ignore the Embroidered Dog Sweater

Vampire Weekend’s jaunty, wordy pop is meant to inspire joy, not rage

Please Ignore This Band

Why Vampire Weekend’s high-society fetishizations can’t help but drive you to Black Flag

Everyone's Gone to the Dentist

Downtown kids chill out, kick back, discover yacht rock, soak in the good life

Dracula in Disneyworld

Vampire Weekend's goofy charms