21st Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas Artist Spotlight: Vampire Weekend

We are taking bets now. Lay down your Hanukkah gilt on the table. Who wants to bet that Vampire Weekend will be wearing preppy, ridiculously kitschy yet amazing holiday sweaters to the 21st Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas? They kind that include red, green, and white argyle and an embroidered Rudolph with a red nose that lights up?

We’d be disappointed if preppy, yacht-rock, intellectual indie band, Vampire Weekend, didn’t show up in something like that. At the very least, we expect them to be wearing Santa Claus socks.

In 2006, while students at Columbia University, Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio, Rostam Batmanglij, and Chris Tomson started Vampire Weekend on a whim and began their careers by playing shows at Columbia Universities literary society parties. Their slick, melodioc-pop nerdtastic sound is highlighted in one of their first singles, “Oxford Comma,” which refers to comma use in a list of three items.

Vampire Weekend garnered a huge buzz in a tiny amount of time thanks to blogs like Stereogum; by the time the band had self-released their EPs in 2007, the band played a huge tour, performed several times at the indie music fest, CMJ Music Marathon, and signed with XL Recordings that fall. People were enchanted by Vampire Weekend’s literate, intellectual lyrics and their uplifting African-inspired melodies.  One of their most popular songs, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” was influenced by Congolese soukous music. In 2007, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” was ranked 67th on Rolling Stone’s list of the ’100 Best Songs of the Year’  and they were declared “The Year’s Best New Band” by Spin magazine in the March 2008 issue.

That same year,Vampire Weekend put out their debut self-titled release for XL Recordings. Their first album was one of the most talked about (and blogged about ) indie releases of the year. The band called it “Upper West Side Soweto” which translates to a mix of effortless 80s chamber music and Afro-pop leanings. With the first taste of their success, Vampire Weekend toured for almost 2 years with bands like The Shins, only breaking to record their sophomore effort, Contra, which was released in early 2010.

Breaking free of their once overly precocious school-boy indie sounds, Contra showed a deepening of musical maturity and saw Vampire Weekend at the head of their class. Combining lackadaisical reggae riffs with a sound eerily similar to a classic Paul Simon album, Contra debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 and tracks “Cousins”  and “Holiday” have become a huge indie-radio hits.

Vampire Weekend will bring their playful, joyous sound to the sold-out KROQ’s 21st Annual Almost Acoustic Christmas, Sunday, December 12th at the Gibson Amphitheater! Click here for all the details on the show!