hypersongs

Vampire Weekend

The debut, US 17, platinum in the US and UK.
Vampire Weekend, 2008

Batmanglij played keyboards and guitar, arranged the strings, and engineered and mixed with help from Jeff Curtin and Shane Stoneback; Emily Lazar mastered. The sound draws on soukous and Congolese rumba plus strings and harpsichord, and the band jokingly called it Upper West Side Soweto. The cover shows the chandelier at St. Anthony Hall, from a Polaroid taken at an early Columbia show. Paul Simon defended the album against Graceland comparisons.

Metacritic scored it 82. AllMusic gave five stars, calling it concise, concentrated, distilled, vivid, Pitchfork 8.8 and the A.V. Club a B-minus. Time ranked it fifth among 2008 albums.

Track listing

  1. Mansard Roof2:07
  2. Oxford Comma3:15
  3. A-Punk2:17
  4. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa3:34
  5. M794:15
  6. Campus2:56
  7. Bryn2:13
  8. One (Blake's Got a New Face)3:13
  9. I Stand Corrected2:39
  10. Walcott3:41
  11. The Kids Don't Stand a Chance4:03

More from Vampire Weekend

Contra (2010), Modern Vampires Of The City (2013), Father Of The Bride (2019), Only God Was Above Us (2024)

Sources

  1. Vampire Weekend (album), Wikipedia
  2. Vampire Weekend discography, Wikipedia