My Top 1000 Songs #555: A-Punk

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

The older you get, the harder it is to be surprised by new music. Oh, sure, I'll never stop enjoying new releases, finding some new favorites, but even the best new music tends to ingratiate itself by reminding me of something else.

Vampire Weekend's 2008 self-titled debut LP, and especially single "A-Punk," were the all-too-rare exception, music that makes you immediately perk up and think, hey, I haven't heard this before, or anything quite like it. Yeah, there was that weird blend of Paul Simon's Graceland and angular post-punks like Gang of Four, but, still, it wasn't something that had obvious precedents.

If I were ten or twenty years younger, I imagine discovering this might've struck me the way past discoveries like Pavement had; hard to say. Hitting me as I entered my 40s, it wasn't life-changing or anything like that. Just a great song that managed to surprise me. Great video, too!

Live 2019: