​Here we have the Dean taking on our Rancid-covering, (briefly) chart-topping heroes, and of course, their haters. "This is all still privilege. But it's no closer to ruling-class power than it is to the affluence of the average American geekboy who gets to insult music he resents online." SHAZAM. As the guy who knows more about the music VW is allegedly stealing than anyone accusing them of stealing it, it's good to have Bob involved. Let's just say he has a way of dominating the conversation.

​You thought they were kidding about the ska thing, huh? They were not kidding. In an interview with us back in January, Vampire Weekend drummer Chris Tomson revealed his band's hidden passion for No Doubt, Sublime, and, most tellingly, Operation Ivy, the outfit that would later morph into Rancid. So is it any surprise they just got around to covering "Ruby Soho" for the BBC's Radio 1? Download it here. Skampire Weekend, let's go! [The Huddle Formation, via Andy Greenwald]

Leslie "The Opportunity" Feist

This isn't the dumbest way we've ever spent an hour in the workplace, but it's certainly up there. The most idiotically laughable meme of the past few days goes to Jerzify Yourself, the inevitable Jersey Shore personal-transformation site in the glute vein of such popular avatar reconfiguration hubs as Simpsonize Me and MadMen Yourself. The gist is Snooki-grade simple: upload a medium-sized jpg, scale the image to fit, choose your spraytan shade, pick your pose--and holy Freckles McGee, you're magically recast as a human meatball. Michael Cera already did this for real, so with the help of the Jersey Shore Nickname Generator, it seemed like a natural progression to run your favorite indie luminaries through the G.T.L. ringer. Certainly you can conceive better ones, and please do send them our way, but first, a few words of caution: beards look funny, as does Thurston Moore, and thin-faced folks don't adapt well to this interface, so Bradford "DJ Douchebag" Cox and Stephen "S-Tan" Malkmus were sent to the great Apple trashcan in the sky. So without further adieu . .

Back in the heady days of right-around-this-time, 2008, this paper ran competing reviews of the debut Vampire Weekend record. "Please Ignore This Band" was the headline on one; "Please Ignore the Embroidered Dog Sweater" was the headline on the other--a positive take, that one. Plus we reviewed quite favorably the band's newest, Contra, just recently, so please forgive us as we get out of the way of critical infighting that is belatedly breaking out over Vampire Weekend's sophomore record. It sort of started here--Jessica Hopper's "Appropriation, Vacation"--which contained some provocative words about Contra ("it's stocked with cheap imports, a bit too sure of itself, and trying to bullshit its way out of trouble," say), plus a riff on a phenomenon Hopper calls "the Pitchfork-nation equivalent of 'Some of my best friends are black.'"

​Turns out that a #1 record in January is no more complicated than Justin Timberlake singing "Hallelujah." Vampire Weekend's short, terrifically fun reign at the top is now over, a week after it began--sales of Contra dipped 65% to 43,000, good for a fall all the way down to #6. Which is still a high, high number, by the way, for an independently distributed record by a band who haven't being doing this thing all that long, New Yorker profiles or no. Hope For Haiti (171,000 copies sold) is your new champion, fueled by all sorts of digital downloads and the 83 million people who watched the telethon on Friday night. Spoon had their biggest debut ever, selling 53,000 records, snatching the #4 spot, and giving all the VW haters a lot of context to think about--Contra's debut last week, let's remember, was a far healthier 124,000. And you wouldn't know it from the Billboard article, but reliable sources say Surfer Blood's Astro Coast debuted at #119. Which is what, after all, you expect your indie titans to do. Let's take our culture back, indifferent consumers! [Billboard]

​Certainly a victory for something or other, one would sort of have to think. Contra sold 120,000 copies on its way to topping the charts, only the 12th time a nominally indie-distributed record has gone #1 since 1991, according to Billboard. (Sorry Ke$ha. Your reign on the top was short like leprechauns: Animal is at #3 and falling, while Susan Boyle's omnipresent I Dreamed A Dream is back in the #2 spot.) Contra surely benefited from a sleepy early January week and not much in the way of competition, but it is still the top-selling record in the entire USA right now, and that has to mean something. (Another thing that may have helped it: Contra is a great record.) For context, Maura provides some of the sales figures for the indie titans (and P+J victors) of 2009. Will Vampire Weekend buck the trend or fall right into the pack? Tune in next week, I guess, and the week after that. Come back, Kevin McFrench. All is forgiven! [Billboard]

Vampire Weekend/Titus Andronicus
United Palace Theatre
Sunday, January 17

I personally do not see anyone wearing the $30 bright-yellow "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" scarf available at Vampire Weekend's merch table -- and believe me, I'm looking -- but later it's rumored they're completely sold out, so. There is certainly no shortage of enthusiasm this evening in Washington Heights, a packed house of cooing coeds swooning at Ezra Koenig's every affable, deadpan word. (So dreamy! So clean-cut! So erudite! Your parents would actually approve for once!) They scream even when Ezra makes the probably true but nonetheless ludicrous claim that "this is the longest show we've ever done . . . a grueling experience, physically and emotionally." It's been like an hour, dude.

New video for the Very Best's "Warm Heart of Africa"--one of many jams on last year's excellent record of the same name. A lot of things working against Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig here, none of them really his fault. But you are going to lose the dance-off to the Very Best's Esau Mwamwaya every time, it's just a fact. Plus you know how band guys get when you take away their guitars and make 'em stand up there anyway. Not a fair fight. [mtvU, via Stereogum]

​So says Billboard, who we consider credible on this topic. Maura notes that a January release date surely helps, and just now Ke$ha did the grunt work of knocking off Susan Boyle. But still: Vampire Weekend. #1. In a land beyond the Internet. Haters intent on preventing this had better go buy a shitload Laura Veirs records.

Vampire Weekend. Photo by Soren Solkaer Starbird.

​There's no feeling indifferent about this band. For fans, Vampire Weekend's sophomore album, Contra (out Tuesday, and reviewed by our own estimable Rob Harvilla here), is enough to make January feel like July--a sugary refinement of the band's Ali Farka Toure-goes-to-prep school aesthetic. If you're one of the group's detractors--well, you should probably just stay away from your computer, television, radio, or whatever for the next couple of weeks. Last week, we caught up with the group's drummer, Chris Tomson, on the phone. Perhaps not surprisingly, he turns out to be a humble, enthusiastic dude who likes Phish and trail mix.