We covered Vampire Weekend quite a bit since they burst onto the indie scene last year at this time. So, in the on-going series, More Best Indie Albums of 2008, here’s to Vampire Weekend’s wildly, and sometimes over-hyped, debut album.
It is rare for a new band to get so much coverage – from Rolling Stone to New York Times – from a debut album. Vampire Weekend came up with a fresh sound, some call it gimmicky (not I), that caught on. Within a few months they were the buzz band of early 2008. They’ve even been on Saturday Night Live which just propelled VW into another sphere of musical success.
The band’s album debut is full of fun, upbeat songs with an underlying swasi-indie pop sound they are so known for. Songs like “A Punk”, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and “Oxford Comma” made the album a big hit in 2008.
There is no doubt that we loved this album and the band’s sound – even went to one of their shows in San Francisco – but over the year it became mundane. Now the pressure is really on these fellows from Brooklyn to come out with a solid follow-up to their popular break through debut.
“Ottoman” – Vampire Weekend available as a single only while awaiting word on when a new album is set for release. Interesting single and definitely a new sound.
So far as we can tell, there is only one relatively new song called “Ottoman” and is available for streaming on Vampire Weekend’s MySpace page.
Listen to Vampire Weekend’s DayTrotter Session from as early as October 2007, just a few months before their name and music exploded on the college radio and indie blogs.