now that VW is on the Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack a lot of fangirls will be swooning over them. But they had a pretty huge fan base before that, and before Nick and Norah's. But Contra is epic, even though some of the lyrics irritate me, For instance, "In the summer drinking Horchata, I'd look psychotic in a balaclava."

Other than that, Vampire Weekend is total boss.

I LOVE VaMpIrE WeEkEnDDDdd!!

(serious post)

They won't really. They may gain in popularity a bit and certainly in radioplay but Muse didn't really get absolutely huge after Twilight so I'm not expecting Vampy Weekend to....although they are pretty popular as it is.....dang.

Never really listened a lot to them, but Holiday is a great song. Gonna give A Punk a try now.

I'm running some music awards on another forum for the fun of it, and oddly this album & the band itself were nominated.

Well I say oddly, given I like both, but there's something very...inclusive about them. I think you have to like everything they do, or absolutely none of it.

Nah, it's weird but it seems like I really like one song, and then the next, despite sounding very much alike, just misses the spot. It gives listening to their albums a really weird feeling.

Not really a big fan to be honest. While there sound is unique they never seem to really change things up all that much. To be fair though, I'm basing my opinion off of there debut and haven't heard much off of Contra.

That's exactly how I feel about them. They have a cool sound, but it gets pretty boring after a while, they don't really know how to change it up.

I liked them quite a bit as they were one of the first Indie bands I ever got into. Then someone told me the Jonas Brothers endorse them (not sure if that's true) and I've been unable to give them a fair listen ever since. Still overall think they're a solid band though.

Im not a fan personally but they released "Cousins" as a single in the UK and when I heard it the first time I thought "these mothers ****ers are crazy if they think this is a hit."

Its got a really weird structure to it and they quite clearly werent seeing dollar signs in their eyes when they put it out. Respect is due I believe.

I'm not sure that they really are that unique. There are hundreds of indie pop groups out there so you'd need to hear all of them to check.

Interesting that people talk about the overall sound. People nowadays do tend to just like a beautiful sound even if there isn't much beyond that.

Oh come on. Prove that they aren't original instead (I like them, so I would love to hear similar music :) ). When I heard Cape Cod Kwass Kwassa for the first time, I hadn't heard anything like it before. It's not just the african influences it's something more... Something about the way the riff completely stops every two bars... I don't know. It was unique to me.

And I think they changed their sound in a big way from Vampire Weekend to Contra. On Vampire Weekend it all sounded... organic and perhaps even a bit archaic... And the fact that they seemingly saw African music as archaic is of course a bit problematic... But on Contra, the influences are much more from South Africa, and the sound is much more electronic, it sounds like they've heard a lot of Timbaland and Neptunes in places. I just don't understand people who say they didn't develop between albums.

I just finished writing about what there is to them 'beyond' there great sound. They are emblematic of our time, with their politics and aesthetics and what-not. Or something like that.

The Centrifugue: The 'Unformulable' on Vampire Weekends Contra (10)