Ezra Koenig and the Incredible Buffness of Being
If there is something like a leitmotif to the last two Vampire Weekend albums it would be “I don’t want to live like this… but I don’t wanna die”. It first appeared in the middle of their relatively dark third album, Modern Vampires of the City, on the multi-layered, feverish “Finger Back” and then reappeared on the deceptively sunny, deeply political “Harmony Hall” the, lead single from this year’s excellent Father of the Bride.
This disturbing refrain is seemingly out of character for a band made (in)famous by their jangly alt-pop about privileged New Englanders and New Yorkers. However, this mix of playfulness and darkness, has been part of Vampire Weekend aesthetic from the get-go and probably even before, given that the band got its name from Ezra Koenig’s unmade vampire horror short taking place all over Cape Cod. What many who dismiss Vampire Weekend as “privileged” or “white”, often fail to grasp is that from the start Koenig and the gang were more provocateurs than preppies.
Indeed, there was always something more than meets the ear in their music. Observed in its…
