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HFN 2010 - 1: Vampire Weekend, ‘I Think Ur A Contra’ from Contra
This blog has six pages of posts tagged ‘Vampire Weekend’ just going back to the release of Contra at the start of the year, which gives a clue as to how this album kinda defined my 2010. There was that Jessica Hopper article which (erroneously) focussed in on race and appropriation, and was kind of emblematic of the souring of the critical discourse about Vampire Weekend. The standard response was to try and ‘take it back to the music’, because Vampire Weekend are just a fun pop band, right? Except the debut s/t ran into a lot of the same problems and anti-classist, anti-privilege criticisms, only at a slightly lower level. And it’s not just about the music, if in fact that’s even possible. Contra is loaded with ideas and references in its lyrics, as is described in this excellent post:
“Vampire Weekend can get pretty bitchy when it comes to critics who demand to hear them tell rich people to go fuck themselves, but Contra is obsessed with punk and politics in its own terms. You don’t call an album “Contra” and then pack it up with references to The Clash unless you’re aching for a face-off with Joe Strummer’s angry ghost. And every time the shadow of The Clash shows up to haunt the lyrics (“Taxi Cab,” “Diplomat’s Son,” “I Think Ur a Contra’) Koenig gets dead serious and apologetic, and melancholically tries to explain why he can’t do heroic political anger. Koenig is in love with being in the middle—all “You’re not a victim, but neither am I” and “Never pick sides, never choose between two, but I just wanted you”—and honestly he’s doing a good job there. If you’re going to occupy a middle ground in life, then it’s a great idea to use it for creating nuanced, fragile songs about how politics and love and money interact while also constantly reminding us about The Clash.”
This is the second time I’ve quoted that conclusion, and although I’m a little suspicious of the idea of the middle ground, both Ezra and the author of the piece make a fairly persuasive argument for at least considering it. What I’m more interested in is taking to the forefront the ridiculously obvious Clash references: right from when I heard the name of the new album, and having the slightly perverse (cos, duh, the Contras were the bad guys) Sandinista! connection corroborated by other name-checks in the lyrics, I knew this was the way I would have to be thinking and talking about the record. Not that it came as much of a surprise either: even the first album reminded me a good deal of the Clash (exhibit). Fundamentally, I just think that Vampire Weekend operate in a lot of the same modes and milieus now, in ‘10, as the Clash did at the start of the 80s. Obviously a lot of things have changed since then, and contexts have different meanings, so it’s futile to try and make a straight comparison.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that many of things Vampire Weekend are accused of or are faulted for doing are what made the Clash such an innovative and interesting band; at worst, that makes them an unoriginal band, but enough time has passed for new discoveries to be made and new combinations of the different strands of Western pop to be forged (and that’s what this stuff is, invariably, despite all the bandying about - on both sides of the argument - of ‘African influences’, it’s the transmission of the same directly or indirectly, or reflexively, into a multicultural, multiracial Western consciousness that creates both reggae and Paul Simon). In addition, Vampire Weekend are pretty punk, even if they don’t show it much. I guess you could say I’m fairly disillusioned with the state of contemporary punk and hardcore, although there is some good stuff out there and it’s not all dead, so forgive me if I put an album by an interesting indie band ahead of something with more more obvious distortion.
‘I Think Ur A Contra’ clearly has a lot to do with disagreement: personal, political, political-personal, and musical. It also contains criticism of the self and others, leading to the whole idea of ‘contra’ as a sort of dialectics of doubt. As the lyrics say:
“You wanted good schools and friends with pools
You’re not a contra
You wanted rock and roll, complete control
Well, I don’t know”
In another of my favourite songs from the album, and one that is somewhat divisive amongst listeners, ‘California English (pt. 1)’ Ezra Koenig runs his autotuned syllables together into a barely discernible “Contra Costa, Contra Mundum [i.e., against the world], contradict what I say”. Musically, his voice is what ties Contra all together, again a lot like the Clash (although equally the instrumentation for both are just as, if not far more, interesting - and both rock groups spawned a member’s dance project, Discovery and Big Audio Dynamite). Thankfully, however, Koenig doesn’t sound or even try to sound like Joe Strummer; aping your idols like that kinda went out of fashion in the mid-00s, with the Strokes. But ‘I Think Ur A Contra’ throws up an interesting comparison, applicable to Contra as a whole, with Joe Strummer and the Mescaleroes: a quieter, more reflective and more ‘world’-influenced maturation of his Clash days. Not so much the somewhat overdone if still powerful final record of his life, Streetcore, but the understated little masterpiece of Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, which is as close as you’re going to get to Contra with a ‘Clash’ album.
