Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Vampire Weekend Tops Billboard and I Say... Meh

Apparently Vampire Weekend's sophomore effort, Contra, has charted at the top of the Billboard 200. When I first heard this news I tried to muster some indignation but really, I can't bring myself to care. I've been aware of VW for almost three years and have been indifferently shrugging my shoulders about the group for two of them.

My issue with Vampire Weekend was never that I disliked the band. It was that so many people thought they were the next great thing, and I couldn't get together enough feeling to care either way. They make some nice, fun little pop tunes, sure. There's a place for that. But I thought most if not all of the hype surrounding them was incredibly overblown.

Clearly my dire prognostications from March 2008 did not come to pass, and VW has survived the blogosphere's comical backlash and spared themselves the fate of Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah. While that's good for them, that doesn't really change my opinion. They still make nice little forgettable pop tunes that are easy to listen to - which is good for them since the Flaming Lips have made quite a career of that - but I still don't see the big deal.

I can't really say my opinions tend to follow the charts, though. Looking at the best-selling albums of the year in the U.S. I own a grand total of one from the past 20 years.

I suppose it's good for "indie-rock" (a term that was only descriptive for a few years last decade) that an independent release has hit the top of the Billboard charts. It's a sign of the times that you don't necessarily need the marketing arm of a major to chart. You just need a thousand over-eager bloggers jumping too quickly to anoint the next king of the hill. Easy, right?

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