Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (2008)

"A-Punk" by Vampire Weekend

The word about Zee Avi passed to the Malloys from Ian Montone, entertainment lawyer turned band manager turned management company impresario.  Montone got off to a major start through his management of The White Stripes.  He followed that up by guiding the success of indie darlings Vampire Weekend.  Their debut Vampire Weekend came out in 2008 on XL Recordings.

Vampire Weekend's sound is a testament to how much popular and critical traction a band can get on the back of good taste.  They transpose the sonic history of African guitar pop to the ivy league campus where it mixes with the more local chamber pop and indie influences.  But what pushes the band's debut to a modern classic is an ideal of creative collaboration that challenges each contribution to be its most engaging best before all of them are neatly nestled together into an efficient, tight and buoyant song.  The conceptual result is full of life in execution and in reception: eternally fresh and iconically memorable.  The traveling, the melange, the product is a story of music just as familiar to Congo or Mali as to Columbia University and all the college campuses that had Vampire Weekend retelling it from just about every open window.

Here is the discography surrounding Vampire Weekend's debut album:

Vampire Weekend (2007 EP)

Mansard Roof (2007 single)

OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer (2007 compilation song)

Daytrotter Session (2007 live session)

Vampire Weekend

A-Punk (2008 single)

Oxford Comma (2008 single)

The MySpace Transmissions (2008 live session)

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (2008 single)

The Kids Don't Stand a Chance (2008 single)

"Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" by Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend Live at Amoeba Music

"Ladies of Cambridge" by Vampire Weekend

Pass the Headphones!!

Cold War Kids - Robbers & Cowards (2006)

"We Used to Vacation" by Cold War Kids

The discovery and signing of Zee Avi took a winding road.  She ended up on Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records but she was referred to Brushfire through Jack's surfing buddies, the Malloy Brothers.  The Malloys got their big break with the surfing film Thicker Than Water, co-directed with Johnson, then shifted their attention to music videos for the first decade of the millennium.  They worked primarily with rock acts and helped break out a handful of indie hopefuls.  One of those hopefuls was the Cold War Kids for whom the Malloys directed the music video to "Hang Me Up to Dry," a song from their debut album Robbers & Cowards released in 2006 by Downtown Records.

Song by song, Cold War Kids show that they have a knack for the occasional bass hook or guitar riff but then can never turn any of these into a decent song.  The missteps come from a combination of a sound, lacking any complexity, that owes way too much to other better bands; poorly executed "high concepts;" and insufferable lyrics, full of forced anthems, and made grating by Nathan Willett's strained singing voice which veers closer to a baby's wail than to an obnoxious Jack White impression.  The Kids are also attracted to the use of noise as metaphor while lacking the ear for either.  They are a band that have ideas though, but never more than one idea at a time, and if it's a clever idea, it's safe to know you can listen to a better execution of it from someone else.

Here is the discography surrounding Cold War Kids' debut album:

Mulberry Street (2005 EP)

With Our Wallets Full (2005 EP)

Up in Rags (2006 EP)

Up in Rags/With Our Wallets Full (2006 compilation album)

Four Excerpts from Robbers & Cowards (2006 promo disc)

Robbers & Cowards

We Used to Vacation (2006 EP)

Benefit at the District (2006 live EP)

Hang Me Up to Dry (2007 single)

Hospital Beds (2007 single)

OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer (2007 compilation song)

Paste Magazine Sampler 33 (2007 compilation song)

"Hang Me Up to Dry" by Cold War Kids

"Quiet, Please!" by Cold War Kids

Pass the Headphones!!