#4 – Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City
Yesterday I wrote about artists who kick off their careers with five or six amazing albums and earn a place in my personal pantheon.
Vampire Weekend haven’t been around long enough to meet that criteria just yet, but based on the three albums they’ve released so far, they are well on their way.
Vampire Weekend has released two excellent albums in the 10s (with more to come, I can only assume). They are the rare band that showed complete mastery of their craft from the very beginning.
Each of their three records is focused and confident, nodding (sometimes very obviously) to influences but converting them into something fresh and unique.
The 15th, 16th and 17th songs on Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll have already been featured on this blog. They are Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball,’ Phosphorescent’s ‘Song for Zula’ and Kacey Musgraves’ ‘Follow Your Arrow.’ All good choices, as is #18, today’s SOTD.
Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City shows up second (to Kanye) on the accompanying list of the best albums of 2013, a sentiment I wholly endorse, having listed the album as my favorite of last year.
Guest blogger Dana continues…
Here’s another instance where, but for you beating me to the punch, I would have put ‘Hannah Hunt’ on my “best of” list, so you can consider it added here.
However, I will also take this slot to feature another big time favorite from this great album, ‘Step.’ Another track I would throw in here for good measure would be ‘Ya Hey.’
Best Songs of 2013 – #1
This is the sixth year-end countdown I’ve done since I started writing Song of the Day posts. The very first was in 2008 and Vampire Weekend reached the #1 spot with the track ‘M79’ off of their debut album.
Five years and two albums later, they’re back on top.
Meet Me In Montauk 