Celluloid Dick #2 – Vampire Weekend – Cousins

God damn you Vampire Weekend.  Why do you make it so hard for me to defend my positive feelings towards your material?  Why do you constantly feel the need to remind me that I didn’t go to Princeton (or Cornell or Dartmouth or Bryn Mawr)?  Why do you have to rub your madras shirts and clever ironicism and frenetic energy in my midwestern face?  I understand that I would be 30% more clever with a degree from an Ivy League school (or even someplace that has “competitive admissions”); there’s no need to flood the internet with videos confirming your aesthetic and cultural superiority.  I get it.  You’re smarter than me.

Do this:  hire me as your manager.  I’ll tell you to tone down the brass-buttoned blazers bullshit, get in touch with your dirt shoveling side, encourage you to make the music about the music, not the wealth and class ethos you push.  I love the musical content of “Cousins.”  Tragically, the inherent douchiness of  the video makes me want to fight every member of the band (with a roll of quarters in my fist; let’s make some decisions we’ll regret).  I could take each one of you stringbeans in the self-same alley you shot this thing in (probably).

To recap: music = good.  Marketing your superiority = bad.

(Editor’s note:  I know that we’re about highlighting stuff that we love, not panning things that we don’t.  I felt it appropriate to make an exception here, since I both love and hate “Cousins.”  Don’t you wish you could sit bands that you love down on the sofa and walk through the things that are going to rub people the wrong way?  In that sense, we’re still well within our defined mission statement.  Hopefully.  I’m back to sunshine and rainbows tomorrow morning if it makes anybody feel better.