If/Then: Vampire Weekend/King Charles

Speaking of Vampire Weekend, if they are your jam, check out King Charles: equally foppish and quirky, whilst being very mindful of its genre blending, and retaining the pop sensibility. It's the "pleasure listening" version of the Vamp Wknd (which, again, I hope doesn't catch on, yet will continue to use.)

Now Listening: Modern Vampires of the City

What even is Vampire Weekend's music? Whimsical, creative, cutesy, unpredictable... they can throw any trick or twist on any song and turn it instantly memorable. And yet that same quality, rightly, keeps a lot of people away from them. Sometimes I am just not in the mood for their shit. Sometimes excessive quirk is a turnoff. There are reasons music generally takes the forms it does, and while the Vamp Wknd (as nobody probably calls them) takes that for their backbone - at its core the music is eminent pop rock - they lay on so much extraneous chicanery that every few tracks I need to hit pause, rest my ears, maybe listen to something that I "get" more. At its worst, its best qualities are shrill, annoying, frustrating, confusing, distracting, irritating. Hipness is kind of a shell game in that way: keep it moving so they never figure you out, never label you. Stay ahead of your audience so they never get over you. Maybe, they'll think, they just don't get it. (By they, I mean me.)

Maybe you really love Vampire Weekend! Maybe you're never not in the mood for them. Good for you! I can totally see that. Personally I don't have the energy to keep pace with their relentlessly changing sound. Are they innovators, imitators, curators of the weird? I don't know. I'm actually kind of glad they do what they do, and can safely recommend this album to anyone who's of that mindset. Personally, I'm not, but I get it. Kind of. Maybe. What I do know is that very few things that have a chance of being great are for everybody.