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“The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” – Vampire Weekend
(Words: Ezra Koenig, Music: Vampire Weekend, available on Vampire Weekend, XL 2008)

I will be the first to admit that I have an early track bias.  While I may not actively prefer the first few songs on an album, I end up paying more attention to them than the ensuing songs.  I’m culpable because my attention for an album generally peaks when I actively seek it out and put it on.  Even with some of my favorite albums I might be distracted by something else.  However, I want to think that it runs deeper than just attention spans and distractions.  If nothing else, I wonder how many bands sequence an album considering “first impressions,” or at least with the knowledge that people like me will generally spin the first side more than the second side.

This bias isn’t necessarily a negative one; in fact, some songs benefit from flying under the radar a little longer, escaping the lightning quick judgment we make instinctively at the beginning of an album.  These might be more challenging songs, songs that build on musical or lyrical themes presented earlier, or songs that do something different from the opening sequence.  In this case, I’m drawn into “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” largely because of Ezra Koenig’s vocal delivery in the song.  While it’s not an outright departure from the rest of the album, Koenig offers slight variations on his vocal style.  He strains his range slightly at the end of some of the lines, not by screaming, not losing the note, but only slightly out of his comfort range.  He sounds a little less relaxed and a hair more anxious as a result, but really only by comparison to some of his more buttoned up vocal performances near the end of the album.  He even cracks into a strange falsetto near the end, perhaps as the last twist on his debut album.  While “A-Punk” and “Oxford Comma” hooked me early on, “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” (and “Walcott,” the penultimate track) is the most played songs on my digital copy of the album.  I wonder how that would be different if it changed positions.

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