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10:50 · 1,716 words of transcript · watch on YouTube
- The trilogy is read as two parallel developments, Rostam Batmanglij growing as a producer and Ezra Koenig maturing as a writer, which is what makes the arc feel inevitable in order.
▶ 00:00:50
- They formed around Columbia University in the mid-2000s and self-produced the debut after graduating.
▶ 00:01:11
- They broke the indie rock dress code by singing about class and wealth in cardigans and blazers, where other New York bands of the time hid the same backgrounds behind leather jackets.
▶ 00:01:30
- The appropriation charge gets answered directly: the two main writers are Jewish and Persian respectively, and the African and Caribbean influence is abstract rather than lifted.
▶ 00:02:07
- Koenig was an English major, and the first song he wrote uses punctuation to make a point about pretension, which is the whole register of the debut.
▶ 00:03:20
- Contra keeps the prep imagery but widens the palette with electronics, with a ballad or two showing him developing as a singer rather than only a lyricist.
▶ 00:04:17
- Rostam's role is enormous: keyboards, drum programming, guitars, string arrangements, engineering, mixing and production, on top of co-writing.
▶ 00:04:43
- Cousins shows the method. Multiple microphones on the snare alone, layered and panned for width, with the guitar part played at half speed and sped up afterwards for a plastic, mechanical tone.
▶ 00:05:03
- Its final wall of sound separates tubular bells into one speaker and a celesta into the other with distorted guitar up the middle, and even the vocal runs through a distortion compressor.
▶ 00:05:23
- Modern Vampires is the step into adulthood, darker and more introspective, with the African and baroque elements still present but absorbed, and the writing simpler and heavier at once.
▶ 00:06:46