Vampire Weekend: Contra (Best Thing I Ever Heard VI)

As a music fan, my favorite experience is anticipating a new album, having it come out and totally fulfill my expectations, and then wanting to listen to nothing else for 2-3 weeks. As you might imagine, this doesn’t happen very often. However, the new Vampire Weekend, Contra, is just such a record.

Whatever the opposite is of a sophomore slump, this album defines it. It’s not just a v 2.0 of the first record – it moves forward, expands their sound a bit without being too much of a departure. Every song is solid to amazing – this week I’ve had no fewer than 7 of them drift into my head without warning. The melodies are air-tight and memorable, the hooks are almost ridiculously plentiful, the whole thing is unfair to the rest of 2010.

My only complaint, oddly enough, is the sequencing. It’s nonsensical. It’s almost like they just threw the final mix on shuffle and used that as the tracklist. The bounciest song (“Cousins,” a classic track 2 if ever there was one), is buried in the middle of the second half. The most initially jarring song (“Horchata”) leads off the album, instead of starting side 2 like it should. The obvious closer (“Giving Up the Gun”) is a showstopper that kills the momentum of the second side, right at track 8. It’s totally inexplicable.

Normally, for a record I didn’t care much about, this wouldn’t bother me, but around listen 10 or so of Contra, I started realizing I needed to resequence or it was going to drive me crazy. So I did:

1. I Think UR A Contra
2. Cousins
3. White Sky
4. California English
5. Taxi Cab
6. Horchata
7. Run
8. Holiday
9. Diplomat’s Son
10. Giving Up the Gun

Give a comparative listen and let me know what you think. I think it takes the record from a 9.5 to a 10. I’m pretty sure this is the best record I’ll hear this year, and if I’m wrong, so much the better.

It made me formulate a theory – there are two types of artists/bands. The first: ones that have good timing. They latch on to a sound that’s popular, they sound good enough, they get on the radio, there’s something about them that clicks with people that like that kind of music. There’s nothing wrong with succeeding this way, theoretically (just ask Creed).

The other type are the ones who are just that much better at it than the rest of us. They write better songs. They play better. They think of trying things others don’t. They craft new sounds from old parts. They’re inherently musically talented and there’s no magic to it, you can’t even really analyze it. Obviously I’m making the case that Vampire Weekend falls into the latter category – I listen to Contra and it ebbs and flows and sounds like nothing I could dream of making. That’s a good thing.