Welcome to the first edition of Content Nausea. Here is the welcome post. This issue is about Vampire Weekend, ascribing extra meaning to potentially meaningless things and football, I guess.
I woke up today as a 27-year-old, which isn’t a particularly interesting note. Aging happens. In the weeks before graduation in 2014, a classmate said to me, “Wow, I can’t believe it’s been four years.” My response was, “Yeah, I can.” It had felt like four years in College Park. It has felt like 27 years.
But I can attempt to make turning 27 an interesting endeavor by tying myself (and all other 1992 babies) to Vampire Weekend. The band that everyone makes fun of for being overly preppy released its latest album, Father of the Bride, last week to much acclaim. That means that Vampire Weekend has released albums in the years that I (and all other 1992 babies) turned 16, 18, 21 and 27. Those are supposed to be landmark ages. Kanye West was the only other artist I could think of who covered the 16/18/21 trifecta. I have always meant to research other artists who followed a similar pattern, but I never have.
So I will go against my better judgment and ascribe extra meaning to this band and this album. When I was a sophomore in high school, I reviewed the Vampire Weekend self-titled for an album review assignment in my intro to journalism class. I got either a 98 or 96 on the assignment with some extra praise from Mr. A, and I felt like I had the “knack” for writing about music. I’m not sure how that holds up.
But on the whole, 2008’s self-titled came out when I was finding my footing in high school. I remember waiting for Contra to show up on Mediafire late on a Monday night in January 2010 so I could listen to it and have my opinions formed when I went into class that Tuesday. It was groundbreaking for them to use Auto-Tune at the time. Modern Vampires of the City flew more under my radar, but it felt like an adult album, and since it came out on my 21st birthday, I treated it as one. It was the final record I bought at Coda Records in Bel Air. I have reasons why each album is important.
Where might Father of the Bride fall on that spectrum? It is a good album. I was not disappointed by any of it, and I was impressed by parts. But at 18 songs, it is a little too long — has streaming bloat come for indie rock, too? — and I could do without the wannabe Fleetwood Mac-esque duets with Haim. I will give Ezra Koenig and company credit because eight of those 18 songs are still shorter than three minutes. That is impressive. It needed Rostam, though.
I am a big fan of “Harmony Hall,” “This Life,” “Stranger,” “Sympathy,” “Sunflower” and “How Long?” I am excited to see Vampire Weekend in September. The only time I have seen them was at Sasquatch 2010. It was good. Part of me regrets not seeing them at Merriweather Post Pavilion with Beach House and Dum Dum Girls that September. I went to see Maryland beat Morgan State, 62-3, for my first college football game. C.J. Brown broke his collarbone that night. That would have been a peak 2010 show to go to.
OK, this top section is starting to digress, so I will start to move things on. I will probably have more things to write about Vampy Wknd in the coming months before they are on my mind a ton.
Some things I wrote
DeAndre Thompkins says he’ll be driven to succeed in the NFL because he didn’t get invited to the combine and he didn’t get drafted.
Tomorrow should be better than today. It’s a good philosophy from Miles Sanders.
Apparently, Eagles fans are ‘roasting’ Andre Dillard’s hair.
JJ Arcega-Whiteside went to Stanford and did Stanford things.
Some other things I read or watched or listened to or thought about
Listen to the vibes [spring] playlist I made.
The 052k19 playlist is underway. “Cattails” by Big Thief and “UFOs” by Drawing Boards are great.
Quinn and I watched The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, which is the HBO doc on Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. I don’t think Silicon Valley needs to exist. Entrepreneur is a useless word. Capitalism might be bad. I need to read “Bad Blood” soon.
I finished my first e-book last week, and it was an interesting experience. It wasn’t bad, but it is not something I will do on a regular basis. The book, though — Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis by Sam Anderson — was great. I learned too much about Oklahoma City, and it’s the type of book I want to exist about every city you randomly think about every once in a while.
I’ve watched more than three seasons of “Superstore” in the past couple weeks, and it is a funny and good television show.
Newsletters are having ~their moment~ but Will Leitch’s was the first one that really caught me, and I’ve been subscribed for nearly three years. I also ripped off the naming convention for this one from him. Oops. His most recent newsletter was one of his best.
Four years now pass in a blink; four years pass without realizing it has been four years at all. But four years in college is several lifetimes stacked on top of each other. When it's over, all those lifetimes fade away, and you have to go out and find the real one.
Instant replay is making sports lame.
Tim Anderson rules.
To bring things full circle, a look back at the 10-plus years of Vampire Weekend.
Thank you for reading the first edition of Content Nausea. Please tell me if there are any typos and what you liked about this. it will get better.
Swapping parts and roles is not acting but rather emancipation from expectation
Collectivism and autonomy are not mutually exclusive
Those who find discomfort in your goals of liberation will be issued no apology
—D.G.