Contra – Vampire Weekend ★★½

Year	Album	Artist	Stars	Score	Genre
2010	Contra	Vampire Weekend	★★½	59	Rock	Indie Pop	Baroque Pop

Contra’s a bit of a mixed bag. Every song has a little bit of charm to it — like a horn melody or playful guitar riff in the background or light electronic production — but some songs feel mechanical and flat musically compared to Vampire Weekend’s debut before it or their albums after it. 

I love the ridiculousness of Ezra Koenig’s over-the-top vocals on the chorus of “White Sky” and the playful bleeps, claps and drums that form the beat. “Cousins” is a fun, chaotic rock track with some frantic guitar strumming, that’s followed by the album’s best song, “Giving Up the Gun,” an upbeat track which has this cool combination of a synthetic sample and a guitar texture that leads up to a cute chorus with bells and soft vocals. I’ve also kind of grown to love “Diplomat’s Son” in almost a sarcastic way, because I really thought it was lame and too long when it first came out but I’ve been singing it to myself for years since. 

Somehow, Contra is actually a very singable album because of Koenig’s off the walls vocal performance, and you can sing along endearingly or mockingly and have a good time sounding terrible while doing it. At times the performance works, but it doesn’t always lead to a good song. The quick-fire delivery of  “California English” is interesting but the song’s a bit of a mess, and I’ve always found “Holiday” to be an obnoxious track (it being in car commercials for three years in the early 2010s probably didn’t help). 

The less energetic tracks — “Taxi Cab,” “I Think Ur A Contra,” — don’t do much for me and feel emotionless for what’s supposed to be a more tender moment. And while “Horchata” is an adorable beach tune that gets the record started and “Run” has some charm to it as well, they don’t really stack up to the rest of the band’s catalog.