Accidental luck or marketing?

The fact that Internet became one of the most effective methods for pushing young bands up is not a new thing to know. A slogan of the present times is self-promotion and those who understand the essence of the things that take place today move to the front. Nevertheless, it's not that easy, as it may seem. How do all those bands manage to turn the gaze of Internet society upon them? What prevails here, accidental luck or a competent marketing? Members of a New York band Vampire Weekend started creating an e-net buzz around their act in 2006, not long after the band was formed. As a result, the musicians made a real blog stir, which exceeds characteristics of, let's say, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Comparison of these bands is quite appropriate. Both of them belong to indie rock and besides Clap Your Hands Say Yeah acquired a name for themselves with the help of e-net too. In a word, starting positions of both acts are equal, however, the result is different. If Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were lucky to sell 200 thousands copies of their first album, than in the case of Vampire Weekend it is quite clear already now that they will make much more.

Vampire Weekend is an unusual and interesting band

It is not so hard to guess that the growing interest to Vampire Weekend is not based only on blogs and MySpace. The musicians managed to attract attention but the most important thing is that they are able to hold it. Vampire Weekend is an unusual and interesting band indeed. Unlike Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, which can hardly offer you something bigger that a raw garage sound, Vampire Weekend are trying to be original. It is pretty hard to identify their style - here you can find their love to indie rock, vintage soundtracks and ethnic music but what is more important, they evidently have talent that helped them to mix all these things into one whole. Besides, the musicians chose an interesting and again original image for themselves. Vampire Weekend look like a company of a college guys. They make photos against blackboards and compose songs with titles like Campus or Oxford Comma. By the way, both of this tracks sound quite exemplifying. These are not the best compositions of the album but you can clearly see the fundamental style of the band in them – a friendly and unobtrusive indie rock.

Simple and accessible

The best tracks of the record definitely include A-Punk and Cape Code Kwassa Kwassa. The basis is good-old indie-rock but still here you can find a whole bunch of interesting innovations. Bongo drums, African rhythms and melodies, vintage keyboards and some ethnic horns. Everything sounds sufficiently consistent, cheerful and quite simple. A track called M79 sounds very interesting too. This is probably the most serious song of the album. Here the musicians used a lot of strings and harpsichord, which adds a very peculiar flavor of antiquity but you can also find here backing vocals in a-la Afro-ethnic and interesting rhythm section, for all that. As a matter of fact the album carries no lame songs, each of them sounds compactly, informative and interesting in its own way. By the way, the conciseness of the album is probably one of its best qualities. 30 minutes of playtime is quite enough to understand what the band wants to say and not to get bored. The album will be interesting for the fans of indie rock. There is a whole bunch interesting and even innovative ideas expressed in a simple and accessible way.

Leo Chevsky
14.02.2008