Fin de Semana de Paul Simon

I can't seem to lay off Vampire Weekend. I've now had a chance to listen to their second album, Contra. Listening to it, I'm reminded of a review that I read of Coldplay's second album, A Rush of Blood to the Head. I can't find the review right now, but the line that stuck with me all these years was something like: "With A Rush of Blood to the Head, Colplday did what every young, ambitious band needs to do with their second album: they got better." I think that's a pretty fair description of what Vampire Weekend did with Contra: they got better. There isn't much of a pronounced change in style with this album; I think they just wrote better songs and executed them better.

One thing, though. According to the article in The New Yorker about Vampire Weekend that I mentioned before, "The band does not like to talk about Paul Simon, having heard too much about its debt to Graceland." Fair enough. However, if they don't want to talk about Paul Simon and Graceland, they may want to work on having songs that don't sound exactly like Paul Simon. Specifically, the second song on Contra, "White Sky," is a dead ringer for "Crazy Love, Vol. II." (Sorry, there isn't a studio version of "White Sky" up yet on youtube, but you'll get the idea from this live version.) A rolling 12/8 groove, trebly guitar and keyboards, the same 80s era snare drum sounds, Koenig's voice during the verses even sounds like Simon's breathy, gentle, high register tenor. And the chorus features some wordless whoops, sounding exactly like what Simon does on another track from Graceland, "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes."

And it's not just me who hears this, either. When I played "White Sky" for Catharine, she spontaneously starting singing, "Fat Charlie the Archangel," the first lyrics of "Crazy Love." And someone named Homer8j comments on youtube, "I think they drew a lot of influence from Paul Simon. This song is like The Boy in the Bubble [another 12/8 song from Graceland] combined with Crazy Love, Vol II."

So, here's another hint for you academics out there writing about Vampire Weekend: anxiety of influence.