No Sleep Till Brooklyn

N o S l e e p Ti l l B ro o k l y nBy Chris Copeland

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H ype is a pop culture trickster that incarnates himself in fads. He jumps into the midst of a burgeoning phenomenon, stirs the pot, and then

leaves. In 2008, Hype possessed a quartet called Vampire Weekend, the poster children for the first grand music scene of the new millennium, which happens to reside in Brooklyn, New York.

Vampire Weekend would land the cover of a major music magazine be-fore ever releasing an album. They were invited for a coveted performance spot on Saturday Night Live. Blogs exploded with effusive praise for these Columbia University alums with preppy attire and intellectual cuteness (if you know what an Oxford comma is, then you know what I mean). They were the Next. Big. Thing.

Except they weren’t. I first heard Vampire Weekend at the end of 2009, over a year after their self-titled debut and months before the anticipated fol-low up release, Contra. Actually, I heard a Vampire Weekend song—Peter Ga-briel recorded a cover of “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” and the song itself was fantastic, gracefully capturing the Gats-by-esque longing of the song’s narrator for an old money, Cape Cod beauty. Ga-briel renders the song like he does most songs—elegantly.

After hearing Gabriel’s version, I headed over to Lala.com to listen to Vam-

pire Weekend’s version of its own song. I hoped I might discover great music I had willfully overlooked, but hearing the song was like eating unsalted crackers. The energy was lacking. The vocals did not comprehend the emotional depth of the narrator. The production sounded like a high school band tinkering with a boot-legged version of Pro Tools. The song’s structure is solid, so Vampire Weekend clearly knew how to write. But as I lis-tened to the remainder of the album, it seemed Vampire Weekend liked being famous more than crafting music. The spectre of Andy Warhol was haunting Williamsburg. Thus spake Brooklyn!

The November 16, 2009 issue of New York magazine boldly declared on its cover that Brooklyn is now America’s music capital. If quantity is the primary factor in determining that distinction, then Brooklyn is indeed what Nick Car-raway referred to in The Great Gatsby as “the old, warm, center of the world.” In 2009 Brooklyn artists swarmed the top of year-end “best of” lists like the rush


and doing something. The musicians themselves have become their own pro-ducers, labels, and distributors, and crit-ics’ praises suggest that the effect of this do-it-yourself process on music matters much more than the music itself.

Another feature of the Brooklyn scene is the abundance of EPs, which have be-come more prevalent than full-length records. Since iPods enabled consumers to pick and choose songs and sequenc-es, the raison d’etre of the album has diminished severely. Bands no longer need ten songs to make recording eco-nomically feasible, especially because a lot of these songs are recorded in base-ments and bedrooms at low to no cost. As a result, many Brooklyn bands’ dis-cographies feature more EPs. Even af-ter hit records, these bands ignore the urge to milk success and usually release more music, at times within months of the original hit. In 2008, Joseph Arthur released 4 EPs, one a month beginning in April, before releasing his full-length record, Temporary People in September. In the pre-digital age under a tradition-al label, fans would have had access to those three albums worth of music only over the course of six or eight years.

While the independence and plen-teousness of Brooklyn music is impres-sive, the most outstanding feature of the Brooklyn scene is its cross-pollination, in which bands have yielded to individual identities. In this environment, side proj-ects gain as much or more prominence

hour crowds on the Bedford Avenue L. While these artists are making a lot of music, this scenario has played out, often, throughout the development of America’s arts culture. Brooklyn, enjoy it whilst ye can.

Since 2001, Brooklyn has swallowed Manhattan’s poor, huddled, tired, 20 year olds with Mac laptops in a cycle of gen-trification that is one step in the march to earning hipster street cred. Gentrifica-tion typically seems like an insidious cy-cle driven by the greed and wealth of the business class, but the truth is that art-ists need their pre-gentrified enclaves for image purposes. Could anyone imagine The Strokes hitting it big while living in a brownstone on the upper west side?

Brooklyn, however, has distinguished itself from other major music scenes (70s Minneapolis, 80s Athens, 90s Seattle), which were always somewhat regulated by the record labels. The cost and pace of producing a record limited the frequency of releases. The requisite tour to support an album limited side projects. In these scenes, band identities were fairly fixed too, as evidenced by the spectacular failure of so many side and solo projects (Slash’s Snake Pit comes to mind).

Brooklyn is the first truly post-mod-ern music scene because it represents the first conglomeration of bands of the iTunes era. The results have been startling. The first thing one notices when reading critics is that the virtue of the Brooklyn scene seems to lie simply in being there


boom are shifting the shape of the mu-sic industry, and in this post-major la-bel, digital environment these shifts will establish long term trends for recording artists. However, Brooklyn is well past the initial stages of gentrification, and its music scene has already begun alienat-ing the front line hipsters, fans who are

probably disgusted that their scene made the cover of New York magazine. As for myself, I ended 2009 by listening to as many Brooklyn records as I could. A lot of great music is being made there, but the Brooklyn scene is on the verge of the sorting process; five years from now we will care about only a handful of these bands, and there will be only a handful of great records. In my opinion, those re-cords have already been made.

The great Brooklyn record will not be Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Col-lective’s 2009 critically lauded record. Animal Collective creates atmospheric music that is not quite ambient, and the songs are interesting, as are the sounds used to make the songs. In Animal Col-lective’s atmosphere though, the air is thin—the songs lack passion, as if they are exercises in recording methods. The album has echoes of Pet Sounds, which

than original lineups, and bands shift (and sometimes trade) lineups frequent-ly. New York magazine best encapsulates the scene when describing Dirty Projec-tors: “The name had stood for whatever music David Longstreth was making, wherever he happened to be, with who-ever was at arm’s length.” In Brooklyn, a

sort of incestuous community of creativ-ity has blossomed.

For example, Longstreth’s Dirty Pro-jectors is a veritable revolving door with 12 former members comprising mul-tiple permutations. Two of those former members are Ezra Koenig and Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend. Griz-zly Bear is another band receiving a lot of attention. Daniel Rossen was asked to join Grizzly Bear by NYU roommate Chris Taylor, but he continued to create music with his other band (and another NYU roommate), Department of Eagles, which released a successful record in 2008. And Taylor has been credited as producer on a Dirty Projectors release. If Brooklyn’s scene is remembered for anything, it will likely be for blurring the lines of band identity.

What’s happening in Brooklyn is fas-cinating. The dynamics of the creative

A spectre is haunting Brooklyn—

the spectre of Andy Warhol


Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, was in-tended to be the centerpiece of this ar-ticle, but I struggled mightily through the record for many of the reasons stated above. The only Brooklyn album gar-nering as much attention in 2009 was Merriweather. Veckatimest sounds even more untethered, and if I continue this paragraph I will be giving it more words than it deserves.

The great Brooklyn record will also not be self-titled release from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. However, I have been listening to this record a lot, mostly because of the sheer exuberance of its power pop. The record is simple and derivative, and a joy to listen to. Unlike Merriweather Post Pavilion, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart has some lyrical teeth, with lyrics that are nuanced for a pop record. A musical bildungsroman, the songs capture the progression of youthful innocence without being youth-ful themselves. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is a decent album masquerad-ing as a great one, inhabiting neither a naïve nor an intelligent perspective on relationships; it is simply powerful in its shameless acceptance of something im-mediate and good. Animal Collective may be smarter; The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is much more fun.

Less fun is Vivian Girls. They are well settled in their genre, which is essential-ly punk. They are a Ramones redux, and like the Ramones, their sense of place is limited. Except for a certain type of

I have always thought was a music crit-ic’s joke on outsiders. At the end of the day, I want my music to have a sense of place. I want it to declare where it be-longs, whether as background music for a dinner party or the soundtrack for the morning drive jam. Merriweather has no sense of place. Some songs, like “My Girls” and “Summertime Clothes” have some pop if you can cut through unnec-essary excess. And while I don’t dislike the songs, I never want to play them. The record’s biggest impact comes from its experimental, almost deconstructionist, approach to current music. Eventually though, a band, taking cues from Ani-mal Collective will make music like this with a little bit of soul and more ma-ture lyrics, and Animal Collective will become a footnote.

While we’re on the subject of Animal Collective, it’s worth mentioning percus-sionist Noah Lennox’s side project, Pan-da Bear. His 2007 record, Person Pitch, unsurprisingly sounds stylistically similar to Merriweather Post Pavilion. However, Lennox’s lyrics, while often the stuff of high school journals, reach for a sense of identity: “I’m not trying to forget you. I just like to be alone. Come and give me the space I need.” Person Pitch looks for a sense of purpose beyond musical ex-perimentation, and Lennox’s experimen-tal approach sounds conceptually fuller than Merriweather. Like Merriweather, I don’t dislike the record, but I still don’t ever feel like playing it.


songs cohere in a way that indicates an intricate attention to detail—like them or not, these songs can’t be accidents. The record works in spite of the music, thriving on the strength of vocalists Am-

ber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian, who exercise control of their lovely voices. The band’s Dom-ino Records bio page de-scribes Long-streth’s music as “labyrin-thine song ar-

rangements that go down easy,” a remark-ably apt observation. The music on Bitte Orca is so complex it confines Coffman and Deradoorian who might otherwise soar on simpler melodies. The record is mostly head, a small dose of heart, and it moves enough to draw me back after a time away—I don’t desire to listen to it but often feel compelled to. The lyrics are as elementary as Animal Collective’s, and I don’t think Bitte Orca will be the game changer. But if Dirty Projectors can unshackle themselves from the limits of Longstreth’s vision, they have the poten-tial to record some potent material.

One Brooklyn band caught my atten-tion on the strength of a single. MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” is a riot of a song—

fan, one has to be in a particular mood for this kind of music. When that mood does arrive, Vivian Girls are perfect for occupying it.

Here We Go Magic, like Vivian Girls, hearkens back to the 70s, al-beit on the op-posite end of the spectrum. The self-titled record has touches of a less sophisti-cated Steely Dan. Here We Go Magic is not a signifi-cant record, but it might best exemplify the efferves-cence of the Brooklyn scene. According to Pitchfork’s review of the album, Here We Go Magic was recorded “in a two-month period of stream-of-consciousness recording.” Kerouac may have written On the Road in the same manner, but there is a latent arrogance in flitting through a re-cord’s production and trying to pass it off as “creative process.” The album may be interesting, but it’s ultimately the sound of someone killing time.

Dirty Projectors sounds nothing like killing time, unless killing time means ut-ter obsession. If you count the EPs, Bitte Orca is like the 415th release from Dirty Projectors, and on first listen, the record comes across as chaotic. However, the


While walking Brooklyn’s sonic side-walks, I returned time and again to Jo-seph Arthur, my favorite artist of the past three years who also happens to reside in Brooklyn. Arthur is prolific to the point of exhaustion, yet he manages to stay above the Brooklyn hype, garner-ing little attention on the blogs or in the

major magazines. He has not been cited as the next big thing, probably because he writes straight up rock songs. He is at heart a singer-songwriter who does not consider synthesizers a primary instru-ment, though he uses them well to sup-port production on his records. His live band features drums, bass, lead guitar, and Arthur himself with a microphone and acoustic guitar.

Arthur’s lyrics are earnest without being clichéd, to the point that when he sings something like, “May God’s love be with you, always,” you are looking for a pen to sign up for the movement. With Arthur, the movement is just con-sistently excellent songwriting. After releasing the equivalent of five records in three years (all enjoyable, solid ef-forts) Arthur has delivered one gem, the self-produced masterpiece, Nuclear Daydream. The 2006 release wraps lis-

full grooves, dense production, and self-aware lyrics. The song, about becoming rock stars, recognizes its own youthful-ness with a c’est la vie approach to fame: “This is our decision to live fast and die young. We’ve got the vision, now let’s have some fun.” The boys marry models, divorce models, then find new models.

If MGMT are merely a couple of post-grads filling time with keyboards and an iMac, then there is a latent genius un-derneath their nonchalance.

MGMT (which comprises the duo of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew van Wyngarden) utilizes techno-like dance grooves on much of the record, Oracular Spectacular. But then the song “Pieces of What” comes out of nowhere with a simple guitar and vocal. It’s not an atmo-sphere or an experiment—it’s just a song. Of all the Brooklyn bands, they have re-ceived the most mainstream attention, with both a major label record deal and a Grammy nomination. Their second re-cord will indicate the extent to which MGMT can contribute to the American pop canon. Orcaular Spectacular fore-shadows a great record, but I suspect Goldwasser and van Wyngarden will have left Brooklyn long before then.

The Brooklyn scene is on the verge of the sorting process; five

years from now we will care about only a handful of these bands,

and there will be only a handful of great records.


fore coming to Brooklyn. He entered the fray with the battle scars of touring and recording and releasing records out of the back of a van. He is old enough to have experienced the old music indus-try, and it must be a sign of my own age that I consider these two records among the best Brooklyn has produced.

The greatest Brooklyn record thus far, however (and the one that no artist cur-rently recording in Brooklyn will touch), belongs to a band that came to the game with fewer scars than Arthur but with

a grander vi-sion. TV on the Radio clings to the Brooklyn stereotype like a pair of skin-ny jeans: Their music is struc-tured around s y n t h e s i z e r s , and at least one member went to NYU. After grad-uating from the

Tisch School of the Arts, Tunde Adibe-mpe teamed with producer David Sitek to form TV on the Radio. The lineup has changed since the beginning, but Adibe-mpe, Sitek, and Jaleel Bunton now form

teners in a sonic blanket that grants a cozy access to the songs themselves. The album offers meditations on love, friendship, risk, rejection, and seeking calm. It is the rare kind of record that I will listen to without skipping a track, and three years after its release it still sounds fresh.

Nuclear Daydream has not and will not place Arthur on a par with Radio-head, The White Stripes, or even Wil-co. His catalog will last though, maybe will even be dusted off during the next great wave of ir-ritating pop and remembered as an example of musical purity. His songwrit-ing deservedly captured the recognition of Peter Gabriel and Michael Stipe because it has emotional depth, some-thing lacking in the records of so many other Brooklyn bands. Like The Hold Steady, the band responsible for another great Brooklyn record (2006’s Boys and Girls in America), Arthur took his hits be-

Dear Science achieved perfect balance be-tween experimentation and listenability.


artists from all the other bands that hype has car-ried this far is the view of music as a vocation, not just a culture. One senses that Joseph Ar-thur would be homeless were it not for music, while the Vam-pire Weekend boys have trust funds to go home to when being in a band gets old. In fact, these seem to be the two sides to Brooklyn—the artists, and the Warholian like avant garde. In ten years, the distinction will be made clear by the albums that are still being listened too. Vampire Weekend’s debut would have been at the top of my list of albums that will dissipate. But then they got good.

In January, Vampire Weekend did fans the pleasure of streaming the new record free on their website prior to re-lease. To my utter surprise, Contra found the depth that was lacking from the first album, and to a noticeable degree. The same West African rhythms are present. The same intellectualism and preppy cuteness is present. But the soul that Pe-ter Gabriel lent to “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa “ is also present. Ezra Koenig et al seem to have left the grand party in

the fulcrum of the band. TV on the Radio (TVOTR) released

the critically-lauded Return to Cookie Mountain in 2006. The record had odd but compelling grooves and made clear that TVOTR possessed both talent and a couldn’t care less attitude toward any standards of any scene. Cookie Moun-tain was one of those records that tran-scended its Brooklyn-ness, a good record that just happened to have been made by Brooklynites. The record was raw though. A quantum leap was imminent.

2008’s Dear Science polished Cookie Mountain’s rough edges without compro-mising its edge. It bounced across genres without compromising cohesiveness. It redefined TVOTR without compromis-ing the band’s identity. Most notable however, was the giant leap in produc-tion made by Sitek. Dear Science is in some ways the Achtung Baby of the new decade—it achieved perfect balance be-tween experimentation and listen-abili-ty, it retained a soul while destroying the formula of the previous record, and it took listeners to new sonic realms with-out making them feel as if they were in foreign territory.

Dear Science, along with Boys and Girls in America and Nuclear Daydream are albums that understand their own emotional depths. They are albums that would be made with or without Brook-lyn. They are albums by musicians who know music and don’t just fancy them-selves musicians. What separates these


order to roll up their Banana Republics knit sleeves and begin working. The re-sult is an album with soul, which makes the pretensions of the self-titled debut appear visionary.

Hype is a powerful force currently battering Brooklyn. The bands that survive in the void left by hype’s departure will do so because they will have found roots to support the fancy facades of Brooklyn image. Music scenes fade, and Brooklyn will too, but not before leaving an indelible mark on the industry. The Brooklyn Boom will force listeners to accept a more fluid and prolific music industry, and for that reason, music will need to be that much better to last. Masterpieces will be fewer and farther between, but listeners will have a plethora of really good music instead. For a steady stream of music that fosters my hope in the promises of life, Brooklyn, I’ll toast to you!

Photo of Amber Coffman by Amanda M. Hatfield

Photo of Dave Sitek by Miss Lady Lee

Photo of Tunde Adibempa and Jaleel Bunton by angela n.

Photo of Joseph Arthur by alterna2

via Flickr

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No Sleep Till Brooklyn