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Vampire Weekend | 
 enlarge | Artist: Vampire Weekend
Label: Xl
Category: Music
List Price: £13.99
Buy New: £6.98
You Save: £7.01 (50%)
New (16) Used (6) from £5.65
Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 75
Format: Explicit Lyrics
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 40318
UPC: 634904031824
EAN: 0634904031824
ASIN: B0010V4TZU
Release Date: January 28, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Mansard Roof | | • | Oxford Comma | | • | A-Punk | | • | Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa | | • | M79 | | • | Campus | | • | Bryn | | • | One (Blake's Got A New Face) | | • | I Stand Corrected | | • | Walcott | | • | Kids Don't Stand A Chance |
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| Similar Items:
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Who would have thought it? Nobody, that's who. The last time African music enjoyed any meaningful dalliance with the Western mainstream it was under Paul Simon's patronage with his peerless 1986 album Graceland. That's if you don't count Damon Albarn's extra curricular indulgences (which you don't). The last place we expected it to turn up again was from four New York kids who otherwise might have been found fiddling with their fringes in dorm rooms waiting for the Albert Hammond Jr. tour to hit town. Even by the obscure standards US indie has set itself over the last few years (see TV on the Radio and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) Vampire Weekend offer up a witch's brew of audacity. That alone would be sufficient to garner infamy and a rep for experimentation, but they also hang from this rebellion of form a stream of alt-tunefulness so efficient and unabashed it would make The Strokes' first album blush. Thus, the piping reggae organ and sun-kissed swagger of "Oxford Comma" is given a heartbeat by tight lo-fi garage drums and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" lilts along with cheerful tribal rhythms and crisp African guitar, bound by ascending psychedelic vocals. And that's not to mention the mad strings that make listening to "M79" like watching Ski Sunday on hallucinogens. Their advanced rhythmical awareness even makes more standard indie rampages "I Stand Corrected" and "Walcott" less standard. Which is about the length of it; Vampire Weekend, making the standard much less standard. --James Berry
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Music has returned! June 4, 2008
S. Owadally (Cardiff, UK)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Having listended with disdain as boring guitar hooks have begun dominating the radio stations, I was so relieved when I heard this album. For years, the best bands were releasing albums of high quality, but since guitar music returned to being all the rage, record companies have been more willing to release the mediocre in order to cash in on the popularity of it. Finally, this album has seen top quality, inventive music return.
It is somewhat ironic that this British observor has needed some more New Yorkers to reignite his passion, but after hearing all the recent, average British deliverings from the likes of Pigeon Detectives, Foals and the like, it was just this slick, confident New York helping that I needed. It is a similar feeling for me as when The Strokes first burst on. That relief. Granted, this period of mediocrity has not been as long as it was preceding The Strokes, but this is still an important break from an important band.
It has been apparently hard for bands to be original in the current climate but this album achieves that and more. From the first bars of "Oxford Comma" and "A-Punk" to the cute, African influenced strings of "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", this is so refreshing. Synths are also used in careful quantities and they fit in perfectly. The vocals are young, naive and bold. Which is superb.
"I Stand Corrected" is a beautifully crafted, lyrically-confessional masterpiece of this moment in musical time. It is, for me, the standout track of the album with it's elegant mixture of harmonising strings with military-style drums. It's length and abrupt end just bring about more of the inevitable comparisons with Casablancas and New York's finest on their legendary debut. And in the next track, "Walcott", they seem to combine epic with lo-fi, however impossible that may seem. And again, the abrupt end is brilliant.
This album is one that will make you sit up and listen and take great note. Unlike so much recently, it is not background music. It is innovative, inventive, original, bold and confident. When a band can cram all those things successfully into a debut, only good things can come. And at little over 30 minutes, you will be left craving more.
Absolutely superb.
A whiff of fresh air March 17, 2008
Carlos Dias Pinto (Portugal)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
These guys that as far as I know had left the university recently also have a degree in good musical taste. Obviously they studied carefully the Graceland of Paul Simon, but they went far beyond and in the middle of many influences (obviously they heard Konono n.1) they built a very special noise. A clean and joyfulness sound. A Whiff of fresh to air...
funtime pub/pop rock. Lightweight short and thoroughly enjoyable April 13, 2008
inkslug (Europa Orbital One)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I Like others have been moved to write a review because of the unfair drubbing this album is getting. It appears that everyone who doesn't like this dislikes it for the wrong reasons.
1. they don't want to hear it on repeat on the radio and TV- well switch over!
2. It's not what they were expecting from the hype- Well more fool you, you should have checked the readily available samples first!
3. It's lightweight and short- Well thank god! We need a little lightweight short chirpy tunes very now and then!
4. It's unoriginal- well no music is original it is all a product of what has gone before and I would take issue with that anyway, it's used the influences in an enjoyable original way!
This album is an instantly accessable funtime pub/pop rock album. I've booked tickets for two of their gigs since getting it. It's currently the only album I'll listen to while doing all the dreaded chores around the house. It's quick, upbeat and very danceable. I can't wait to jump around at their gigs to this. I love stand and listen in awe rock as much as the next guy, but sometimes you need to put your pretensions away and just have fun. Be aware that this album is like this and you won't regret your purchase. Only like moody, long winded stuff then look elsewhere and don't dare dish this album. It never claims to be anything other than a good time.
Genius! July 28, 2008
Emily Spandley (Brighton, United Kingdom)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This album is absolutley brilliant! I love the lyrics! They are deep and perceptive and fun. The sound is infectious and life loving! Buy this album it will brighten up your day whenever you listen to it! And if you want to listen closer it will provoke you to imagine more fully the parts of stories it tells!!
Refreshingly different, sophisticated and upbeat indie. January 29, 2008
G. Charlesworth (North Somerset, UK)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
When i first heard the name of this band i thought 'oh no not another 'emo' band fixated on killing themselves', but instead what i came accross was a band that sound remarkably different from the current indie scene. Infused with african rhythm, lyrics referencing to characters and events in history and the lead singer and indeed music sounding a little like paul simon, this band are superb. Although the album's half an hour long, with songs such as the infectious 'A-punk', to the sublime african sounding 'cape cod kwassa kwassa' and the sweeping orchestral backdrops to songs such as the moving 'The kid's don't stand a chance' this album is utterly blissful from start to finish.
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