backlash to the backlash

A Definitive Defense of Vampire Weekend

For those of you seeking such a thing, there is now a definitive answer to all the Vampire Weekend hateration: Robert Christgau, the dean of American rock critics (as some people actually do refer to him), addresses class, musical colonialism, and the band’s sweaters (they are not as significant as Kanye West’s, which have proved “prophetic”). Many good lines here, including: “Keeping the mood playful rather than succumbing to racial embarrassment or fetishizing serotonin malfunction, both familiar indie disorders, Koenig throws up cultural contradictions and leaves it to his listeners to sort them out — or not.” (Elsewhere, Christgau hilariously reviews the Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca, writing, “Yale music major David Longstreth greets his well-distributed new label, in timing I’m sure is sheer coincidence, with nine striking songs that are recognizable as such.”) [Barnes and Noble, MSN]

A Definitive Defense of Vampire Weekend