Video: Vampire Weekend performing "California English

I have a tough act to follow. Actually, four tough acts. All week, each member of the FP music staff has compiled his or her top five songs of the year so far. And they are all scorchers. (Does the Dutch soccer team feel this kind of pressure since Spain beat Germany ?) In any case, here are my top 5 songs of the year. Thus concludes FPs Top 25. If you haven't listened to the picks from Psychiatrist , Capitolist , Revivalist , and Funbunny , please do. Your ears will [...]

Hype, it's a bitch for your band. At best, you'll get lots of attention, which hopefully will bring with it legions of music lovers who will buy your records and come to your shows and give you all sorts of love, making those years of slog worthwhile. At worst, it'll turn everyone against you, picking at you until you can take no more and you break up, disheartened and disconsolate. Most of the time, it goes for the worst. But even if things go well at the start, it'll probably all go horribly wrong for the [...]

• Vampire Weekend - Cousins
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Vampire Weekend performed on the KCRW show Morning Becomes Eclectic yesterday (Jan. 11), and video footage from the session is now streaming on YouTube. In this clip, they perform an autotuned version of the skittish fourth song on Contra , "California English." We checked in on Simon Reynolds' concise rundown of the album earlier today on this clip of "Cousins" from Conan O'Brien's show, and for "California English" the Rip It Up and Start Again author has declared it "sensational" (which isn't quite as good [...]