The surface of Vampire Weekend’s “Holiday” is all sun, but darkness lurks underneath its ska-punk bounce. “It’s about a member of my family who gave up meat when we invaded Iraq,” lead singer Ezra Koenig explained to British music weekly NME in 2010. “They were horrified by what was happening, and they lost their taste for meat. It wasn’t even an overt protest, it was a physical reaction.” It’s a strange origin for a single that many (including advertisers) interpreted as a non-denominational song written specifically for the end-of-year holidays, but then again, most everything about Vampire Weekend seems conjured in Victor Frankenstein’s laboratory: college students in polo shirts fusing street music from globe-spanning locales with trends from across American pop history, their career was jolted to life by the internet, a then-emerging technological force the nascent Vampire Weekend leveraged in fresh, fascinating ways.
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Vocals, Backing Vocals, Electric Guitar
Neumann TLM103, Epiphone Sheraton II
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Track Facts
Vampire Weekend
Contra
XL Recordings
XL CD 429
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HOLIDAY
EZRA KOENIG: LEAD VOCALS, GUITAR
CHRISTOPHER TOMSON: DRUMS
CHRIS BAIO: BASS
ROSTAM BATMANGLU: PIANO; BACKGROUND VOCALS; VOCAL HARMONIES; KEYBOARDS; HARPSICHORD; VSS·30; DRUM; SYNTH; SAMPLER PROGRAMMING, GUITARS
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ALL TRACKS PRODUCED BY ROSTAM BATMANGLU
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All TRACKS MIXED BY ROSTAM BATMANGLU AND JUSTIN GERRISH
ENGINEERED BY ROSTAM BATMANGLU, SHANE STONEBACK AND JUSTIN GERRISH, ASSISTED BY FERNANDO LODEIRO
RECORDED AT TREEFORT STUDIOS IN DUMBO, BROOKLYN; TOPETITUD IN MEXICO CITY, MEXICO; AVATAR STUDIOS NYC IN MANHATIAN; HICKS AND JORALEMON IN BROOKLYN
ALL TRACKS MASTERED BY EMILY LAZAR AT THE LODGE, ASSISTANT MASTERING ENGINEER JOE LAPORTA 7/09
