Vampire Weekend

 My latest music obsession is Vampire Weekend's first two singles from their soon to be released album, Only God Was Above Us. Both of the singles, Capricorn and Gen-X Cops, have some elements of existentialism. In Gen-X Cops it says, "Each generation makes its own apology," at the end of the chorus. This line infers that every generation becomes self aware to some extent of the previous generation's wrongdoings. As each generation becomes aware of those sins they can look introspectively at the actions of their own generation leading to their subsequent apologies. 

Furthermore, in Capricorn it talks about how they are too old to die young and too young to live alone. This seems to be talking about being middle aged or a younger adult. At some point you just are not as young anymore even if you still feel young mentally. On a personal level, this stage of life is in sight, but still has yet to begin. The format of being too young for A and too old for B can be used at any stage of life, with exceptions. Having recently graduated with my bachelor's degree, many of my peers have begun their careers and some have even gotten married/engaged and/or have their first kids. To me I feel too young for those situations, yet I feel too old for other things. 


The band Vampire Weekend does seem to cover a wide range of topics within their entire discography and I look forward to learning more about Only God Was Above Us. It appears to be about being in your thirties and early forties, the age range of the band members, and is a call back to the pop culture of their youth. There is a movie that came out in 1999 that is also called Gen-X Cops, they have used some pictures from Steven Siegel's 1998 series, "Subway Dream," and the title of the album could be in reference to changes in religious beliefs that can come in adulthood after moving out of your parents' house. Of course, these are just speculations and not much can be confirmed until more information has been released about the next album.

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