taste tests, viral nuisances, and intellectual cojones

I wish these cold / influenza viruses would leave me alone. Or at the very least, I wish they wouldn't consistently bother me on the weekends. The only viruses I like are the ones happily associated with the 16-bit fun-ness of Dr. Mario. And even then, I only like it when they disappear or dance like maniacs once the music creeps to that level of uber-fastness (meaning you need to flip faster!).

Downloaded a good bit of music the last few days. In rotation (with links to samples, for your taste-testing convenience): Thao, Shipwreck, The Mountain Goats, The Dodos, Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend.

I've been reading about Vampire Weekend -- blog posts, magazine articles, etc. When the name is brought up among hipster audiophiles there seems to be a collective, vomitous convulsion. Yes, they're over-hyped. Yes, they're a pretentious group of Ivy leaguers who like to show off their intellectual cojones during interview. Yes, they wore awful preppy sweaters on the cover of Spin magazine -- the ones that make you look like you should be pipe-smoking and shooting skeet with your grandpa.

For the record:

1) I have nothing against grandpas, or the sweaters they wear. In fact, I'm positive I own a sweater aptly fitting this description...but I've never been skeet shooting.

2) I'm not a big fan of pretentiousness.

3) Bands have very little control over their own hype. Hype is what other people make them out to be.

Music-wise -- not bad, despite a small laundry list of turn-offs outside the music arena, but not the golden boys of indie rock they're sometimes made out to be. Vampire Weekend is music you can turn on while you're prepping dinner ingredients and bounce around to, a la an 80s movie dance scene with Winona Rider, a young Christina Ricci, and a top-of-her-form Cher (Yea, I said top of her form). They make a decent pop song, but to save the spine of your recently purchased, glossy music magazine, I'd simply stay away from reading the interviews.

As for the rest of the bunch, with the exception of Shipwreck favoring electric, the downloads have been acoustic deliciousness. Give 'em a shot, if you get the chance.