
Vampire Weekend is an American band from New York City, formed in 2006, that New Weird America- experimental indie rock brings. Currently they have signed to XL Recordings. The band consists of vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, guitarist, keyboardist and backing vocalist drummer and percussionist Chris Tomson and bassist and backing vocalist Chris Baio. The band released their self-produced debut album Vampire Weekend in 2008 including the singles "A-Punk" and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa". The band's second album, Contra, was released in 2010. On May 14, 2013 followed the third studio album, Modern Vampires of the City .
Content[]
History[Edit][]
Formation and exposure (2006-2007)[Edit][]
The band members met during their studies at the Columbia University in New York City, starting with a hip hop group consisting of Koenig and Tomson. The band members had a shared love for punk rock and African rhythms.
Koenig toured with the band Dirty Projectors during a period of experiments with African music. This inspired them to the use of world music in their first work. The band chose the name "Vampire Weekend" to a short film project by Koenig in one of the summers during his years at the college. He looked up one evening to amovievampiresfrom the 80s and became inspired to make their own version, which he called "Vampire Weekend" mentioned. [1] In the film travels a man named Walcott, played by Koenig, to Cape Cod to the major alert that a bunch of vampires attacking the United States to be. As seen in the trailer the movie would be ready around Christmas 2005, but after a few days put Koenig the project stop. The film later formed the inspiration for the song "Walcott" and the beginning of the title of "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", two songs on their debut album. The band started playing at Columbia University, with the first number one battle of the bands in the Lerner Hall. After finishing their studies the band members themselves produced their debut album while they practiced full-time employment; Tomson as a music archivist and Koenig as a teacher in the secondary school English.
In 2007, "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" in the list of the 100 best songs of that year on the 67th place. In november 2007 they went together with The Shins by the United Kingdom. The now common form of «internetbuzz and blog hypes played a large role in Vampire Weekend success, and in addition led to a large pre-release and three tours before the release of their debut album. By Spin magazine they were named best new band in the edition of March 2008, and were also the first band pictured on the front page for the release of their debut album. Four of the songs on the debut album were also in the Triple J Hottest 100 list of 2008.
Zelfgetiteld debut album (2007-2008)[Edit][]
Vampire Weekend's debut album, Vampire Weekend, was released on January 29, 2008. It was a great success in the United Kingdom and the USA; the album was ranked number 15 in the UK Albums Chart and at number 17 in the Billboard 200. There were four singles released from the album: while "A-Punk" peaked at number 25 in the Billboard Modern rockchart and at 55 in the UK Singles Chart, "Oxford Comma" was the highest at number 38 in the United Kingdom. "A-Punk" was also on the 4eplace in the Readers ' Rock List of best songs of 2008 by Rolling Stone magazine and it was used extensively for openers of both television programs and video games.
Contra (2009-2011)[Edit][]
Vampire Weekend's second album, Contra, was released on January 11, 2010 in the United Kingdom and a day later in the United States and other countries. On January 12, was "Horchata" available as a free download on the site of Vampire Weekend. The first official single from the album, "Cousins", was released on november 17, 2009. Contra was the first album by Vampire Weekend that came in at number 1 in the Billboard 200.
On January 9, 2010 the band did an acoustic session for MTV Unplugged. The following month they toured through Europe and Canada with the Canadian electroduoFan Death as for program. The video for the next single, "Giving Up the Gun", was released on 18 February. They were also on many festivals throughout the United States and in Australia. The third single from the album, "Holiday", was released on June 7, 2010. This single had a lot of airplay in Belgium and Netherlands.
Vampire Weekend played on June 25, 2010 on the Pyramid Stage of Glastonbury Festival and were also on the main stage of T in the Park on 8 June of that year. They were also a headliner of Oxygen Festival, Latitude Festival, the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim, Jisan Valley Rock Festival in South Korea and Peace and Love, the biggest festival of Sweden.
Also in 2010 by Vampire Weekend toured North America with the Beach House and Dum Dum Girls. The tour started on August 27, 2010 in Vancouver. For the concert said Koenig against the public that they went through the longest "holiday period" since a long time.
Contra was nominated for a Grammy, but had to to the album Brothers by The Black Keys.
Modern Vampires of the City (2011-2014)[Edit][]
On 11 november 2011, it was announced that Vampire Weekend had sat in the studio again, for new material to write and record their third album. On 26 april 2012Rolling Stone reported that at the end of the year could be released. Koenig stated that she had a lot to do and that it would be nice if it would be ready by the end of 2012, but that they would like to release anything of which they later would think "here we could any longer to have worked". Up to the release, the band members have been very discreet about the album, saying that "a band no boel interviews can give as them somewhere to work". In interviews they stated that they already were working earlier with the album. In July 14, 2015 the band toured with Taylor Swift for the album for the album for In 2009 to 2012 for the first time band toured with Taylor Swift
On 4 February 2013 the band tweeted "NYT Classifieds..." (an online ad site) through their official account. Stood there, at the section Notices & Lost and Found, the text "Modern Vampires or the City May 7, 2013" in an ad. On their site they also placed the letters "MVOTC". Later the release leaves are up to 14 may (13 may in the United Kingdom) by means of an official announcement on the Facebook page of the band. Modern Vampires of the City was written and filmed in various locations, including SlowDeath Studios in New York, Echo Park "Back House" in Los Angeles, Vox Recording Studios in Hollywood, Rostam Batmanglij's New York apartment and a guest house on Martha's Vineyard. The album was a co-production of Batmanglij and Ariel Rechtshaid. Because the previous albums were produced only by Batmanglij, this was the first album in which a producer of outside the band was concerned.
In an interview with Q Magazine (for the edition of February 2013) described Koenig the forthcoming album as "darker and more organic" and that it is very similar to the last part of a trilogy. On 16 March 2013 they played the last show at Stubbs on the last day of the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. They played 2 songs from their new album; "Hey Ya" and "Diane Young". On 18 March 2013 they released a double single, "Diane Young"/"Step". On 11 may 2013 they were the musical guest for the third time in Saturday Night Live and played "Diane Young" and "Unbelievers", two songs from their new album. [2] [3]
The album reached the number 1 in the Billboard 200, making it next to the band's second album Contra was that this position. As a result, the first indie rock band Vampire Weekend was that with two consecutive releases on number 1 debuts. [source?]
Members[Edit][]
- Ezra Koenig — singer, guitarist, songwriter
- Rostam Batmanglij — Keyboardist, guitarist, backing vocalist, song writer and producer
- Chris Baio — Bassist, backing vocals
- Chris Tomson — Drummer, percussionist
Discography[Edit][]
Albums[Edit][]
Album (s) with chart positions in
the Flemish Ultratop 200 albums |
Date of
appear |
Date of
entry |
Highest
position |
Number Of
weeks |
Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vampire Weekend | 2008 | 01-03-2008 | 37 | 11 | |
Contra | 2010 | 16-01-2010 | 8 | 26 | |
Modern Vampires of the City | 2013 | 18-05-2013 | 11 | 1 * |
Album (s) with any charts in the
the Dutch Album Top 100 |
Date of
appear |
Date of
entry |
Highest
position |
Number Of
weeks |
Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vampire Weekend | 25-01-2008 | 23-02-2008 | 62 | 5 | |
Contra | 08-01-2010 | 16-01-2010 | 31 | 8 | |
Modern Vampires of the City | 2013 | 18-05-2013 | 20 | 1 * |
Singles[Edit][]
Single (s) with chart positions
in the Flemish Ultratop 50 |
Date of
appear |
Date of
entry |
Highest
position |
Number Of
weeks |
Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa | 2007 | - | |||
Mansard Roof | 2007 | - | |||
A-Punk | 2008 | - | |||
Oxford Comma | 2009 | - | |||
Horchata | 30-11-2009 | 23-01-2010 | 26 | 2 | |
Giving up the gun | 01-03-2010 | 06-03-2010 | tip15 | - | |
Holiday | 31-05-2010 | 03-07-2010 | tip5 | - | |
White sky | 11-10-2010 | 16-10-2010 | tip16 | - | |
Step | 2013 | 18-05-2013 | tip23 * |