Modern Vampires of the City
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''Modern Vampires of the City'' is the third studio album by American
indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produ ...
band
Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 2006 and currently signed to Columbia Records. The band was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson ...
. It was released on May 14, 2013, by
XL Recordings XL Recordings is a British independent record label founded in 1989 by Tim Palmer and Nick Halkes. It has been ran and co-owned by Richard Russell since 1996. It forms part of the Beggars Group. Although only releasing an average of six albu ...
. The group began to write songs for the album during
soundcheck A sound check is the preparation that takes place before a concert, speech, or similar performance to adjust the sound on the venue's sound reinforcement or public address system. The performer and the audio engineers run through a small port ...
s on the supporting concert tour for their 2010 album ''
Contra Contra may refer to: Places * Contra, Virginia * Contra Costa Canal, an aqueduct in the U.S. state of California * Contra Costa County, California * Tenero-Contra, a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland ...
''. After a period in which each member explored individual musical projects, they regrouped and continued working on ''Modern Vampires of the City'' in 2011. With no deadline in mind, the band brought in an outside
record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...
for the first time,
Ariel Rechtshaid Ariel Rechtshaid ( ;) is an American record producer, audio engineer, mixing engineer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter. His accolades include three Grammy Awards for music production. Rechtshaid was the lead singer and guitarist of the ska ...
, to record the album. With ''Modern Vampires of the City'', Vampire Weekend attempted to depart from the
African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
-influenced
indie pop Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and sub ...
style of their previous records. Broadly experimental, the album's sound was the result of a variety of unconventional recording assets, including
pitch shifting Pitch shifting is a sound recording technique in which the original pitch of a sound is raised or lowered. Effects units that raise or lower pitch by a pre-designated musical interval ( transposition) are called pitch shifters. Pitch and tim ...
. Subjects explored on the record include characters with adult responsibilities, reflections on growing old, mortality, and religious faith. Vampire Weekend titled the album after a lyric in the 1990
Junior Reid Delroy "Junior" Reid (born 6 June 1963) is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall musician, best known for his featuring on the songs " One Blood", " It's Okay (One Blood)" and "This Is Why I'm Hot", as well as being the lead vocalist for Black Uhuru ...
song "One Blood" and chose a Neal Boenzi photograph of the 1966 New York City smog event as the album cover, citing the haunting qualities of both the title and photograph as the reason for using them. ''Modern Vampires of the City'' debuted at number one on the ''Billboard'' 200, becoming Vampire Weekend's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. By December 2014, the album had sold 505,000 copies in the US. It was also a widespread critical success and ranked by several publications as 2013's best album, while finishing second in the annual
Pazz & Jop Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper ''The Village Voice'' and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year abse ...
critics poll. It has since been ranked on many lists of the best albums from the 2010s. In 2020, the album was ranked at number 328 on ''Rolling Stone'''s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.


Background

The success of Vampire Weekend's second album, ''
Contra Contra may refer to: Places * Contra, Virginia * Contra Costa Canal, an aqueduct in the U.S. state of California * Contra Costa County, California * Tenero-Contra, a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland ...
'' (2010), established the group as "one of the past decade's great indie-rock success stories." By the time their world tour for ''Contra'' ended, the band realized they had not taken a break in nearly five years. During the break, each member pursued individual projects: Baio performed DJ sets and scored the
Bob Byington Robert Byington (born April 29, 1966) is an American film director, screenwriter and actor living in Austin, Texas. He is most noted for his films ''RSO (Registered Sex Offender)'' (2008), ''Harmony and Me'' (2009), '' Somebody Up There Likes Me ...
film ''Somebody Up There Likes Me'', Batmanglij recorded solo material and produced tracks for
Das Racist Das Racist was an American alternative hip hop group based in Brooklyn, composed of MCs Heems and Kool A.D. and hype man Ashok Kondabolu (a.k.a. Dapwell or Dap). Known for their use of humor, academic references, foreign allusions, and unconven ...
and spent time traveling India with three friends, and Koenig collaborated with
Major Lazer Major Lazer is an American electronic dance music DJ trio, which includes record producer Diplo, and DJs Walshy Fire and Ape Drums. It originates from Kingston, Jamaica, and was founded in 2008 by Diplo and Switch, with Switch leaving after t ...
. Koenig had broken up with his girlfriend shortly before the release of ''Contra'' and subsequently moved out of their shared apartment in New York. Feeling "weird and aimless", Koenig attempted to stay in Los Angeles but he returned to New York after four months.


Writing and recording

Batmanglij and Koenig wrote most of the songs in Batmanglij's apartment, a former factory building in
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
. By the time Vampire Weekend eventually regrouped in 2011, the band members had amassed plenty of written material and made sure to take their time making a new record. Koenig and Batmanglij met several times a week to write songs, some of which they'd later scrap. The also pair took a "writing retreat" to
Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the s ...
, where they bore down and composed several new tracks at a rented cottage. Working with no deadline in mind, the group began recording ''Modern Vampires of the City''. The songs for ''Modern Vampires of the City'' were recorded at several locations, including Downtown Studios in New York City, Echo Park Back House and Vox Studios in Los Angeles, Slow Death Studios in Burbank, and the apartment of
Rostam Batmanglij Rostam Batmanglij ( fa, رستم باتمانقلیچ, ; born November 28, 1983), known mononymously as Rostam, is an American record producer, musician, singer, songwriter, and composer. He was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend, whos ...
, Vampire Weekend's multi-instrumentalist and producer. Early drafts of the tracks "Obvious Bicycle" and "Worship You" were produced at
OK Go OK Go is an American rock band originally from Chicago, Illinois, now based in Los Angeles, California. The band is composed of Damian Kulash (lead vocals, guitar), Tim Nordwind (bass guitar and vocals), Dan Konopka (drums and percussion), and ...
frontman,
Damian Kulash Damian Joseph Kulash Jr. (born October 7, 1975) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and music video director, best known for being the lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band OK Go. Early life and education Kulash was born i ...
's old house in Chicago, before being taken to an official studio to work on. Batmanglij and
Ariel Rechtshaid Ariel Rechtshaid ( ;) is an American record producer, audio engineer, mixing engineer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter. His accolades include three Grammy Awards for music production. Rechtshaid was the lead singer and guitarist of the ska ...
, the album's co-producer, used a pair of mirrored solid state MacBooks with UAD-2 Satellite Firewire Cards so they could take their recordings anywhere and work on them from separate locations with maximum ease. ''Modern Vampires of the City'' was an attempt by Vampire Weekend to distance themselves from the sounds featured on their debut record and ''Contra''. "Whenever we came up with something familiar sounding, it was rejected", said Rechtshaid. The band credits Vox Studios with the defining special quality of the recordings, especially the use of their vintage analog tape machines, with Batmanglij remarking, "Much of the overall sound and approach to the album was being able to record the drums to tape on an old
Ampex Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.AbramsoThe History ...
machine." The group wanted a unique drum sound, and so they recorded in a room with high ceilings and had engineer David Schiffman use a "pretty non-conventional drum miking setup" in which a pair of Neumann
U 47 The Neumann is a large-diaphragm condenser microphone. It is one of the most famous studio microphones and was Neumann's first microphone after the Second World War. The original series, manufactured by Georg Neumann GmbH between 1949 and 196 ...
s were used as over head mics with RCA 77dx ribbon mics between the Neumanns and the drum kit for added texture. Tape recordings of the drums were then heavily treated and manipulated with
Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Ableton Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool f ...
plug-ins. Lastly, the band layered samples onto select portions of the drum recordings to accent or shape the finished tone.
Pitch shifting Pitch shifting is a sound recording technique in which the original pitch of a sound is raised or lowered. Effects units that raise or lower pitch by a pre-designated musical interval ( transposition) are called pitch shifters. Pitch and tim ...
proved a major component of recording the album. For tracks such as "Step", drums were recorded on a
Varispeed A variable speed pitch control (or vari-speed) is a control on an audio device such as a turntable, tape recorder, or CD player that allows the operator to deviate from a standard speed (such as 33, 45 or even 78 rpm on a turntable), resulting i ...
Tape deck An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present- ...
set to a lower speed so that they would play back faster and more high pitched. Drummer Chris Tomson would then re-record the drums playing to the sped-up recording to get an uptempo live take. This second recording was then slowed back down to original speed to create an "underwater" effect. The effect is featured prominently on vocals as well. Ezra Koenig's vocals were run through Eventide H949 and 910 on tracks such as "
Diane Young "Diane Young" is a song by indie rock band Vampire Weekend, taken from their third studio album '' Modern Vampires of the City''. It was released as the lead single from the album on March 19, 2013. A promotional video of the single, which features ...
", with both the pitch and
formant In speech science and phonetics, a formant is the broad spectral maximum that results from an acoustic resonance of the human vocal tract. In acoustics, a formant is usually defined as a broad peak, or local maximum, in the spectrum. For harmoni ...
shifted changed to manipulate the sound of recorded vocals. Bass guitar was also recorded straight to tape "with a fairly ambient miking approach where the mic was three feet away from the cabinet". Vocals were recorded with
Soundelux Soundelux is an American audio post production company based in California, a previous member of the Todd Soundelux group of sound companies. The Soundelux library and trademark was bought in 2014 by Sounddogs. In 2021, original founders Bender ...
U99 Microphones, in combination with 1176 Classic limiter plug-in, Fairchild 670 Compressor and Elektro-Mess-Technik 140 Plate Reverb, giving the vocals a quality Batmanglij described as "buttery". For guitar sounds, Batmanglij chose not to mic his guitar and instead plugged his
Gibson Les Paul The Gibson Les Paul is a solid body electric guitar that was first sold by the Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1952. The guitar was designed by factory manager John Huis and his team with input from and endorsement by guitarist Les Paul. Its typi ...
direct-in to
Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-productio ...
through a SansAmp Amp Emulation Pedal, a technique used by
Jimmy Page James Patrick Page (born 9 January 1944) is an English musician who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin. Page is prolific in creating guitar riffs. His style involves various alternative ...
. Vampire Weekend concentrated their efforts on giving each recording "warmth", feeling that modern digital recordings lacked the sound quality of older records. In an attempt to make the tracks sound less harsh, the band and their recording engineers used a
spectrum analyzer A spectrum analyzer measures the magnitude of an input signal versus frequency within the full frequency range of the instrument. The primary use is to measure the power of the spectrum of known and unknown signals. The input signal that most co ...
, Sonnox SuprEsser and heavily automated EQs to edit out harsher, colder frequencies and soften the mix. Vampire Weekend painstakingly listened to the record several separate times using technology from standard commercial
iPod earbuds Apple Inc. has produced and sold headphones since 2001, available for standalone purchase and bundled with iPhone (until 2020) and iPod (until 2022) products. Apple's current product line consists of EarPods (wired earbuds available with a 3.5m ...
to professional equipment to ensure the record sounded nice regardless of equipment the listener owned. Desiring to "check the relative warmth levels", the engineers would "go in and perform surgery and automate EQs" in order to make the mixes listenable. The band felt the finished product was something of a third chapter and a continuation of material explored in their previous two efforts. "We thought these three albums should look like they belong together on a bookshelf", said Batmanglij. "We realized that there are things connecting the songs across three albums, like an invisible hand was guiding us. It does feel like we've been able to create three distinct worlds for each album, and yet have them be interconnected."


Music and lyrics

''Modern Vampires of the City'' is a departure from the percussive,
African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
-influenced
indie pop Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and sub ...
of ''Contra''. Batmanglij said that the album has a recurring
tension Tension may refer to: Science * Psychological stress * Tension (physics), a force related to the stretching of an object (the opposite of compression) * Tension (geology), a stress which stretches rocks in two opposite directions * Voltage or el ...
that distinguishes it from the band's previous albums: "Even if the songs are mostly in a
major key In music theory, the key of a piece is the group of pitches, or scale, that forms the basis of a musical composition in classical, Western art, and Western pop music. The group features a '' tonic note'' and its corresponding ''chords'', al ...
, there’s something that’s hanging out there that’s a little bit dark. And I think that’s reflective of the world." According to Heather Phares of
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
, the album abandoned the eclectic influences of ''Contra'' in favor of "a less audacious production style and smaller instrumental palette: guitar, organ, harpsichord, and the occasional
sample Sample or samples may refer to: Base meaning * Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of s ...
combine into a rarefied sound that suggests a more insular version of their debut". She pointed to how the album is bookended by the stylistically narrow
chamber pop Chamber pop (or Chamber rock; also called baroque pop and sometimes conflated with orchestral pop or symphonic pop) is a music genre that combines rock music with the intricate use of string section, strings, horn section, horns, piano, and voca ...
on the songs "Obvious Bicycle" and "Young Lion". "Step" was inspired by a lyric from
Souls of Mischief Souls of Mischief is a hip hop group from Oakland, California, that is also part of the hip hop collective Hieroglyphics. The Souls of Mischief formed in 1991 and is composed of rappers A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, and Tajai. History East Oakland nat ...
's 1993 song "Step to My Girl", which sampled
Grover Washington, Jr. Grover Washington Jr. (December 12, 1943 – December 17, 1999) was an American jazz-funk and soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with Wes Montgomery and George Benson, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre. He wr ...
's cover of
Bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...
's "
Aubrey Aubrey is traditionally a male English given name. The name is from the French derivation Aubry of the Germanic given name Alberic / Old High German given name Alberich, which consists of the elements ALF "elf" and RIK "king", from Proto-Germani ...
". The vocal melody of the chorus interprets the melody of "Aubrey" so close that the band had to clear it as a sample. The chorus vocals were recorded in Ableton Live using the onboard microphone in Batmanglij's MacBook Pro.
Alexis Petridis Alexis Petridis ( el, Αλέξης Πετρίδης; born 13 September 1971) is a British journalist, head rock and pop critic for the UK newspaper ''The Guardian'', as well as a regular contributor to the magazine '' GQ''. In addition to his mus ...
viewed that some songs echo lesser known "musical tropes" from the group's previous albums—a mock
Irish folk Irish traditional music (also known as Irish trad, Irish folk music, and other variants) is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland. In ''A History of Irish Music'' (1905), W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that, in Gaelic Ireland, there we ...
influence is heard on "Unbelievers", while "Step" features "
Left Banke The Left Banke was an American baroque pop band, formed in New York City in 1965. They are best remembered for their two U.S. hit singles, "Walk Away Renée" and "Pretty Ballerina". The band often used what the music press referred to as "baroque ...
-inspired
baroque pop Baroque pop (sometimes called baroque rock) is a fusion genre that combines rock music with particular elements of classical music. It emerged in the mid 1960s as artists pursued a majestic, orchestral sound and is identifiable for its appropria ...
". More generally, Steven Edelstone of '' Paste'' magazine regarded the music as a mix of "
chamber pop Chamber pop (or Chamber rock; also called baroque pop and sometimes conflated with orchestral pop or symphonic pop) is a music genre that combines rock music with the intricate use of string section, strings, horn section, horns, piano, and voca ...
and world-weariness". According to Brice Ezell from ''
PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...
'', this album is "very much an
indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produ ...
record" because of Koenig's voice and diction, which reveals "the youth that he and his bandmates so often strive to shrug off." Ezell asserts that, on songs such as "Unbelievers", the "reckless abandon" expressed by the lyrics reveals "the group's grasp on the genuine rebellion that indie rock ought to strive for." In comparison to the band's previous music, the lyrics explore more mature, world-weary themes such as growing old and disillusionment with
American foreign policy The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America, including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State, as mentioned in the ''Foreign Policy Agenda'' of the Department of State, are ...
. The album abandons the theme of privileged youth from their first two albums in favor of characters faced with adult responsibilities and reflections on the passage of time. Faith and mortality are recurring themes on songs such as "Unbelievers", "Worship You", and "Everlasting Arms". Koenig discussed ''Modern Vampires of the City'' in the context of the band's first three albums, which he compared to ''
Brideshead Revisited ''Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of the protagonist Charles ...
'': "The naïve joyous school days in the beginning. Then the expansion of the world, travel, seeing other places, learning a little bit more about how people live. And then the end is a little bit of growing up, starting to think more seriously about your life and your faith. If people could look at our three albums as a
bildungsroman In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ( coming of age), in which character change is impo ...
, I’d be O.K. with that."


Title and packaging

The title was taken from a lyric in
Junior Reid Delroy "Junior" Reid (born 6 June 1963) is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall musician, best known for his featuring on the songs " One Blood", " It's Okay (One Blood)" and "This Is Why I'm Hot", as well as being the lead vocalist for Black Uhuru ...
's 1990 song "One Blood". Koenig, a fan of the song, found the phrase "Modern Vampires of the City" humorous but also "haunting" as a title for their album. The album's title was revealed in the "Notices & Lost and Found" column of the classifieds section in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' on February 4, 2013; vaguely defined, curlicued letters spelling the title were printed alongside the release date. Koenig, Batmanglij, and art directors
Matt de Jong Matt de Jong is a graphic designer and art director who specializes in album art and related promotional materials for musicians. He has designed album covers for artists including Cat Power, Clean Bandit, Deerhunter, Future Islands, Little Drag ...
and Asher Sarlin were credited with designing the album's packaging. For the cover art, the band chose an image taken by ''New York Times'' photographer Neal Boenzi, depicting a smog-shrouded, dystopian-looking
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Boenzi took the photo atop the
Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...
in November 1966, when the city was plagued by a smog problem. Because of the subsequent rise in global air pollution, the band chose the photo believing it may have rendered "some kind of future".


Marketing and sales

To promote the album,
XL Recordings XL Recordings is a British independent record label founded in 1989 by Tim Palmer and Nick Halkes. It has been ran and co-owned by Richard Russell since 1996. It forms part of the Beggars Group. Although only releasing an average of six albu ...
released "Diane Young" and "Step" as a double A-sided single on March 19, 2013. ''Modern Vampires of the City'' was released by XL on May 14, and Vampire Weekend played several concerts and music festivals shortly after, eventually embarking on a larger supporting tour throughout late 2013, beginning with a show at the
Mann Center for the Performing Arts The Mann Center for the Performing Arts (formerly known as the Robin Hood Dell West and Mann Music Center) is a nonprofit performing arts center located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia's West Fairmount Park, built in 1976 as the summer ...
in Philadelphia on September 19. John Gentile of ''Rolling Stone'' reported that the band headlined "some of their largest venues to date" on the tour. In the album's first week of release, it debuted number one on the ''Billboard'' 200 and sold 134,000 copies in the United States. It was Vampire Weekend's second consecutive number-one record on the chart, as well as the nineteenth independently distributed album to top the ''Billboard'' 200 in the
Nielsen SoundScan Luminate (formerly Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen Music Products, and MRC Data) is a provider of music sales data. Established by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991, data is collected weekly and made available every Sunday (for albums sales) and eve ...
era (1991–present). The record entered the British album charts at number three with first-week sales of 27,805 copies, becoming the group's third consecutive top-twenty album in the United Kingdom. By December 2014, it had been certified
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
by the
Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
and sold 505,000 copies in the US. In 2014, it was awarded a diamond certification from the
Independent Music Companies Association The Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA), originally the Independent Music Publishers and Labels Association, is a non-profit trade association established in 2000 to help European independent record labels represent their agenda a ...
, which indicated sales of at least 200,000 copies throughout Europe.


Critical reception

''Modern Vampires of the City'' was met with widespread critical acclaim. At
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an
average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
score of 84, based on 51 reviews. Aggregator
AnyDecentMusic? AnyDecentMusic? is a website that collates album reviews from magazines, websites, and newspapers. Primarily focused on popular music – covering rock, pop, electronic, dance, folk, country, roots, hip-hop, R&B, and rap – albums are adjudg ...
gave it 8.2 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. Reviewing the album in ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'',
Simon Price Simon Price (born 25 September 1967) is a British music journalist and author. He is known for his weekly review section in ''The Independent on Sunday'' and his book ''Everything (A Book About Manic Street Preachers)''. Career Writer Pric ...
called it Vampire Weekend's "most cohesive and convincing effort yet" featuring their most accessible compositions. Ryan Dombal from ''
Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
'' said the singing suited the music fluidly on songs that sounded more natural and dynamic than the band's previous work.
Alexis Petridis Alexis Petridis ( el, Αλέξης Πετρίδης; born 13 September 1971) is a British journalist, head rock and pop critic for the UK newspaper ''The Guardian'', as well as a regular contributor to the magazine '' GQ''. In addition to his mus ...
, lead critic for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', believed Vampire Weekend successfully avoided the gimmicky sounds of their previous albums and wrote more genuine lyrics dealing with mortality rather than "arch depictions of moneyed young
Wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...
lives". ''
Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...
''s Jesse Cataldo said the songs may sound dense and wordy, but they would be "immediately potent on a purely visceral level" for listeners, "striking a perfect balance that makes for what's perhaps the best album of the year". Nathan Brackett of ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' said the album featured a particular spirit and songcraft evocative of urban life, while
Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...
appreciated how many twists the
coming of age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can b ...
themes revealed. In his review for ''
MSN Music ''MSN Music'' was a part of MSN's web services. It delivered music news, music videos, spotlights on new music, artist information, and live performances of artists. The website also served as a digital music store from 2004 to 2008. History I ...
'', Christgau found the record similar to the Beatles' '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (1967) because of how each lyric and musical element was "pleasurable in itself and aptly situated in the sturdy songs and tracks, so that the whole signifies without a hint of concept". Other reviewers expressed some reservations. In the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'',
Greg Kot Greg Kot (born March 3, 1957) is an American music journalist and author. From 1990 until 2020, Kot was the rock music critic at the ''Chicago Tribune'', where he covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and busines ...
wrote that Vampire Weekend occasionally blundered in an attempt at ingenuity with the songs "Ya Hey" and "Finger Back" while finding the album "darker, slower and weirder" than their previous records. ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'' journalist John Calvert believed the band had sacrificed "the sonic smarts that made them" on what was an otherwise "gorgeous album".


Accolades

By the end of 2013, ''Modern Vampires of the City'' had been named the year's best album in a number of polls; according to
Acclaimed Music Acclaimed Music is a website created by Henrik Franzon, a statistician from Stockholm, Sweden in September 2001. Franzon has statistically aggregated hundreds of published lists that rank songs and albums into aggregated rankings by year, deca ...
, it was the highest ranked record on average in critics' year-end lists.
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
named it one of the year's 50 best records, and it was voted the second best album of 2013 in the
Pazz & Jop Pazz & Jop was an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper ''The Village Voice'' and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year abse ...
, an annual poll of American critics nationwide, published by ''
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
''. Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it first in his own list for ''
The Barnes & Noble Review Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...
'', writing in an accompanying essay that Vampire Weekend had made an
art pop Art pop (also typeset art-pop or artpop) is a loosely defined style of pop music influenced by art theories as well as ideas from other art mediums, such as fashion, fine art, cinema, and avant-garde literature. The genre draws on pop art's ...
record that "simulates predigital warmth by tinkering with a dizzying panoply of studio stratagems and divides the most emotional songs of the band’s career into distinct parts impossible to enumerate due to how often the arrangements change up gorgeous drum tracks, but I dare you to dance to them". At the 2014 Grammy Awards, ''Modern Vampires of the City'' won in the category of
Best Alternative Music Album The Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums in the alternative genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Ho ...
. In 2020, ''Rolling Stone'' placed it at number 328 on the magazine's revision to the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.


Track listing

All lyrics written by
Ezra Koenig Ezra Michael Koenig ( ; born April 8, 1984) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, producer, and internet radio personality. He is best known as the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of indie rock band Vampire Weekend. Additio ...
, except where noted; all music composed by
Rostam Batmanglij Rostam Batmanglij ( fa, رستم باتمانقلیچ, ; born November 28, 1983), known mononymously as Rostam, is an American record producer, musician, singer, songwriter, and composer. He was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend, whos ...
and Koenig, except where noted.


Personnel

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes. Vampire Weekend *
Chris Baio Christopher Baio (born October 29, 1984) is an American musician, best known for being the bassist for the New York City-based indie rock band Vampire Weekend. He also releases as a record producer under the mononym Baio, and his debut solo albu ...
– bass *
Rostam Batmanglij Rostam Batmanglij ( fa, رستم باتمانقلیچ, ; born November 28, 1983), known mononymously as Rostam, is an American record producer, musician, singer, songwriter, and composer. He was a founding member of the band Vampire Weekend, whos ...
– piano, guitars, banjo, vocal harmonies and backing vocals, drum and synth programming, keyboards, shaker, lead vocals *
Ezra Koenig Ezra Michael Koenig ( ; born April 8, 1984) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, producer, and internet radio personality. He is best known as the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of indie rock band Vampire Weekend. Additio ...
– lead vocals, piano *
Chris Tomson Christopher William Tomson (born March 6, 1984) is an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the drummer for New York-based indie rock band Vampire Weekend. He is also the lead vocalist and guitarist for a side project called Da ...
– drums Production * Rostam Batmanglij – production, mixing , string and brass arrangements, engineering *
Ariel Rechtshaid Ariel Rechtshaid ( ;) is an American record producer, audio engineer, mixing engineer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter. His accolades include three Grammy Awards for music production. Rechtshaid was the lead singer and guitarist of the ska ...
– production, mixing , engineering * Scott Jacoby – mixing *
Emily Lazar Emily B. Lazar is an American mastering engineer. She is the founder, president, and chief mastering engineer of The Lodge, an audio mastering facility that has operated in New York City's Greenwich Village since 1997. She won a Grammy Award for ...
– mixing , mastering *
Rich Costey Rich may refer to: Common uses * Rich, an entity possessing wealth * Rich, an intense flavor, color, sound, texture, or feeling ** Rich (wine), a descriptor in wine tasting Places United States * Rich, Mississippi, an unincorporated commun ...
– mixing * Chris Kasych – mix assistance and
Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-productio ...
engineering * Eric Isip – assistance *
Joe LaPorta Joseph J. LaPorta (born ) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound in New Jersey.http://www.allmusic.com/artist/joe-laporta-mn000199340/credits/date-asc/ Career Born and raised in New York, LaPorta graduated from New York Univer ...
– mastering * Shruta Kumar – score copying * Dave Schiffman – engineering * Michael Harris – engineering * Nick Rowe – engineering * Juan Pieczanski – additional engineering * Jeff Curtin – additional engineering * Justin Gerrish – Pro Tools operation, additional mix engineering * Fernando Lodero – Pro Tools operation * Angelo Vasquex – Pro Tools operation * Rich Rich – Pro Tools operation * Hans Crump – Pro Tools operation Additional musicians * Fanny Franklin – backing vocals *
Angel Deradoorian Angel Deradoorian (born July 18, 1986), also known mononymously as Deradoorian, is a musician based in Los Angeles, California. She is best known for her work with Dirty Projectors as full-time member from 2007 to 2012. She left to pursue a solo ...
– backing vocals , additional vocal arrangement * Adam Schatz – saxophone * Jeff Curtin – additional drums * Johnny Cuomo – flistle * Brendan Ryan – accordion * Elizabeth Lea – trombone * Danny T. Levin – trumpet * Seth Shafer – tuba * Ariel Rechtshaid – additional drum and synth programming , additional bass Artwork * Rostam Batmanglij – album cover design, compact disc design, art direction * Ezra Koenig – album cover design, art direction * Alex John Beck – band photo * Asher Sarlin – compact disc design *
Matt de Jong Matt de Jong is a graphic designer and art director who specializes in album art and related promotional materials for musicians. He has designed album covers for artists including Cat Power, Clean Bandit, Deerhunter, Future Islands, Little Drag ...
– packaging layout, booklet design


Charts


Weekly charts


Year-end charts


Certifications


See also

* List of number-one albums of 2013 (U.S.) * List of number-one independent albums (U.S.)


References


External links

* {{Authority control 2013 albums Vampire Weekend albums XL Recordings albums Albums produced by Ariel Rechtshaid Albums produced by Rostam Batmanglij Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album Albums recorded at Electro-Vox Recording Studios Art pop albums Chamber pop albums Pop albums by American artists