Hall of Fame Looking back on Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut album

The latest inductee into DIY’s Hall of Fame comes from a certain rabble of New Yorkers.

Words: Will Richards
27th January 2016

It was difficult to know what to make of Vampire Weekend when they first strolled off campus and into the spotlight in 2007. Everything from the band’s debut album cover - a picture taken at one of their earliest shows at Columbia University - to its first single and opener ‘Mansard Roof’ to the band themselves: preppy, fresh-faced, unique - made the quartet a compelling prospect.

‘Vampire Weekend’ paints a vivid, sun- drenched picture of student life in New York, full of expectation and sprinkled with heartbreak. Ezra Koenig’s lyrics skip between childlike longing in ‘Campus’, wishing to escape in ‘Walcott’ and brushing aside preconceived notions of the band and their studious ties in ‘Oxford Comma’. Even when the subject matter of ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’ goes beyond staring at a girl across a lecture theatre, it’s delivered with a straight-faced, youthful sincerity.

Vampire Weekend have never sounded like this again, and never will.

Though the band’s breakout hit ‘A-Punk’ is what the album will likely be remembered for, the rest of ‘Vampire Weekend’ sits far away from its biggest single. ‘M79’ sees Chris Baio’s sliding basslines shine, while ‘One (Blake’s Got A New Face)’ is outwardly insane. ‘Walcott’ remains the band’s barnstorming set closer live, and is the closest the album gets to feeling urgent, otherwise vocalising wafting observations with ease and time.

Arriving in a post-Strokes New York, Vampire Weekend largely kept the make-up of an indie rock band, but with little quirks that helped them stand out: Ezra Koenig’s soon-to-be- distinctive guitar tones pack in melody after melody without ever becoming overbearing, Rostam Batmanglij’s keys are swirling and encapsulating, and Chris Tomson shows himself to be one of indie rock’s most inventive drummers, with afro-beats that had rarely been paired with this kind of music.

Arriving in a post-Strokes New York, Vampire Weekend largely kept the make-up of an indie rock band, but with little quirks that helped them stand out.

Vampire Weekend have never sounded like this again, and never will - an album as youthful and bursting with enthusiasm as this could only be a band’s debut. It maintains a special place in the make-up of 2000s; taking the traditional elements of the genre and transporting it to a new, simpler, sunnier place. It’s not an album to be replicated or dissected into a thousand pieces; just one to be revisited with a smile, a document of a special moment in time.

For all the rest of DIY’s Hall of Fame coverage, head here.

Tags: Vampire Weekend, Hall Of Fame, Features