Consistently Inconsistent

"This is a truly magnificent record, and I think it’s going to end up being the album for which we remember Vampire Weekend. Years from now, they won’t be remembered as “that band who sang about commas and wore boat shoes and had a chandelier on the cover of that one album,” but rather as “that band that made that record with the picture of New York on the cover that kept me company when I was living alone, had a good job but was really unhappy and about ready to give up on my dreams at twenty-five.” Anyone who can’t mention Vampire Weekend without mentioning Paul Simon and upper-crust snobbery in the same breath is now officially missing the point by a large margin—not that they ever grasped it in the first place.

Modern Vampires of the City is the work of a band that is so much more than the band that made Vampire Weekend or even Contra, so let’s all just take a minute to bask in the glory of this album and stop talking about the fact that they went to an Ivy League college and are a bunch of light-skinned people making African-inspired music. That’s really not who they are now anyway: Ezra Koenig doesn’t want to be Paul Simon anymore, I think he wants to be the voice of his generation. Personally, I’m more than willing to let him vie for the title."

"I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that - I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying “write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep”, and “cheer up” and “happiness is our birthright” and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say “Quick! Move on! Cheer up!” I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness”. Ask yourself “is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is."