Vivian Girls’ unflattering bathtub interview has come to define the band to some folks, but remember: We all have bad days and say stupid things, it’s just that they aren’t captured on videotape while we sit fully clothed in a bathtub. Plus, at the end of the day, they write good songs and have a great clattering post-C86 sound, which is what matters most. See, for instance, the upbeat and lo-fi “Lake House,” their contribution to the eight installments of Almost Ready’s The World’s Lousy With Ideas 7″ series.
(Via P4K)
The World’s Lousy With Ideas, Vol. 8 is out soon via Almost Ready. Make sure to follow VG on Twitter.
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Like … I dunno. I can’t even bring myself to listen to this free music file.
nope. that bathtub video has ruined them and their music forever.
yea, cause who cares about the music!
SO GOOD.
yup, music still sucks and the interview still holds
See, the problem is that they make DECENT music. It’s not bad, but it isn’t mindblowing either. It’s good enough to leave on the stereo but not good enough to pay to go see live. As such, that bathtub interview and subsequent “we were kidding, wait, no we weren’t” ting outweighs most of the merit of their songs. These girls are giggling cunts. Sorry, but they are.
you are giving way too much credit to the music. you know you don’t even leave it on for a minute. given the year we’ve had in music, and whats’ coming up. this doesn’t deserve a minute. dig in your vaults kiddies, this has been done already and in much better ways
Justin,
I do think you are giving this band too much leeway in giving them a pass on their blatant closemindedness of anyone who isn’t “indie” or “in bands” or people who work and go to Applebees (their words). Besides the humor in their inability to recognize that they do the same thing (go to their job, which is playing in a band, and go to say, Union Pool afterwards to hang out with likeminded people), not every band gives ignorant obnoxious interviews. And no one should or be expected to forget how quickly these girls got up on their high horse after being internet popular for about 5 minutes. The biggest complaint most people have about “indie” music is how insular it is and these girls are just perpetuating this stereotype.
If you juxtapose the Vivian Girls’ interview with one that Alex Kapranos (from Franz Ferdinand) gave to Pitchfork a few weeks ago, where they ask him how he feels about his song being used in an EA sports game, he responded that he was too old to be pressing his world view on other people and was pleased that people could come together over his band’s music. A much more exemplary attitude and point, regardless of the quality of the music of either band.
Sure, the music may transcend certain foibles, but ultimately, the Vivian Girls were not taken out of context or mis-quoted and it would be in everyone’s best interest to focus on other bands who would be more appreciative of any popularity garnered, regardless of what that person does during the week or where they hang out. Remember, we can’t all be artists: who would do our taxes?
- the lecherous frenchman
Well said lecherous frenchman.
Yeah, JUSTIN!
The difference between Alex Kapranos and the Vivian Girls is that he is in his late thirties and has been in the music business doing interviews for years and years now, whereas the Vivian Girls are in their early 20′s and their first interview was probably less than a year ago. Their music is pretty mediocre but it’s unfair to judge them so harshly based on one interview in which they probably had no clue of what they were saying could be perceived as…
i liked them better when they were called the aisler set.
get a fucking producer and some lipo.
Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit’sworldwouldfallapart
that bathtub interview is impossible to forget and still remember their words and just can’t be bother to click on the file.
I’m sorry, but they don’t write good songs and they’re AWFUL live. Hell, they’re awful recorded. Have I mentioned I LOVE C86 and these girls are just curb stomping it. Please stop giving them press (along with No Age).
I liked them better when they were Japanese and went by the name of Perfume.
I don’t really see what is so bad about the interview, I thought it was sort of funny actually. I’ve always found it funny that people would go to a friday’s or applebees to drink instead of you know some local bar around the corner or whatever, and really it is sort of lame…to me anyway. But if you’re really into that sort of thing, have fun.
I find that funny too Carl Lewis. But in all sincerity, Vivian Girls are horrible. Before the interview…after the interview. ALWAYS! Shame on some of you for likiing their music and then bailing on them after a silly video posting. It was amusing. Get over it. What you should really be concerned about is your taste in music.
After watching that interview I will never listen to the vivian girls or drink in an applebees with my coworkers. Fuck em both!
I think the only way they can make up for that interview is to put a song in an applebees commercial or do me. Not the fat one. But its looking like its to late and they are already forgotten about.
which they absolutely would do if they had the chance!
Vivian Girls are embarrassing. I never understood the “hype”. Looking back I think it was just a small glitch in the blogosphere.
Honestly, I don’t think what they said was all that bad. I work in a corporate environment and it is lame, so are co-worker outings. They probably should have framed it in a different context so not to seem so self-righteous, but they were trying to express what a better and tight-knit community our music scene is. When I was younger I toured with my band and people were so warm and took us into their homes and didn’t ask for a thing in return. Work for a fortune 500 company and you’ll see it is (not all, but alot) of back-stabbing, self-centered motivated, just-like-high-school-but-in-a-cubicle-type drama. These girls are young and just learning how conduct interviews, cut ‘em some slack. If I am the exact type of person they were talking about in that interview, and even I can forgive them, can’t you?
Rick,
Now obviously we are going to get into a bit of subjectivity based on one’s own life experiences, but I’ve worked for some pretty big corporations (more than I’d like to list) and large law firms in the past. I’ve also interned at a very large online independent music distributor in NYC, did legal work for the biggest independent label in NYC and for one of the big four major labels.
In my experiences (and this is key) I haven’t seen much of a difference in the behavior, business or social, of the workers in these offices. Quite frankly, due to the more liberal hiring policies, smaller budgets and lack of human resources in the independently run places, people are more stressed out to attain any permanent position (only to be bogged down with long hours and menial pay) at all which leads to the kind of backstabbing high school drama you mention. Human drama exists everywhere.
Now, you might not have a lot in common with people at larger companies, which I can relate to. Which makes the outtings seem like a drag, which I can really relate to. But judging people on where they eat and who they talk to or what they do for a living, seems kind of childish, and really, goes against why I started listening to punk rock and indie music in the first place. I didn’t like being judged by other people and it feels hypocritical to judge those people back for not feeling how I feel or doing what I do.
Additionally, and this is a subjective argument, but as someone who has lived in NYC his whole life, I’m not entirely sure what close knit community you are speaking of. There are tons of amazing people in the music scene who will house you without asking anything in return but that implies people who aren’t in the music scene wouldn’t do nice things for you, and I don’t know if that is necessarily true. The entertainment industry, music included, has thrived on nepotism just as much as genuine good will just like every other industry.
Music is a cut throat business filled with sharks (we’ve all seen them) but also filled with someone genuinely great people. Sounds a lot like any company or corporation, don’t you think?
The sooner we realize we are all the same, regardless of our interests, and the sooner we vanquish vapid spoon fed bands like the Vivian Girls from polluting the scene with aimless, petty negativity towards anyone who is different from them, the sooner our scene will be the warm community you described.
these dames go from playing backyard brooklyn BBQ’s last summer – to the fucking Apollo with M Ward? wow. so fast. the drummer is totally amatuerish and so is the bass player. i really cant wrap my head around this hype bubble of theirs. i dont get it.
Reigning Sound was/is a better band, with songs, that these girls i’m sure listened to alot of.
I liked them better when they were Scrawl, but maybe ’cause I’m really old.
The problem is that interview only magnified the fact that the already shitty music they made is made by shitty people. Which makes sense if you think about it…
i’m from new brunswick nj and remember these girls. i don’t think they could even play instruments 2 years ago, they were more just the kind of people who would show up at parties and think they were hot shit. pretty much universally disliked. the bathtub interview is not a surprise.
Most of their songs (while not bad) are frustratingly too similar. They only have two songs in them, “Tell the World” and everything else.
The fat one looks like Craig Finn.
let the Vivian Girls be an example to all you overhypping idiots!! Wait more than a week next time you discover the “next big thing”. and this album is a lot of “year end lists” last year. Maybe year end lists are “lists of what people talked about this year” and not neccesarily based on quality. This music is mediocre at best.
Nope. That interview killed them for me. Sorry girls. Maybe keep your fucking mouths shut next time and learn how to play your instruments instead. This coming from someone who really did like the record and now I can’t listen to it no matter how hard I try or want to like it again.
They are forever more “The Bathtub Girls”. They suck anyway. I mean c’mon…
who knew so many people liked applebees and working in cubicles?
The redhead gets hotter with every pictor…
I didn’t download their song because, as a “normal person” I wouldn’t want to offend them by listening to their music.
Worst.
vivian girls are hot. that being said they are also talented artists though maybe not the most skilled. coming from a true fan of slumberland c86 wall of sound lo fi music. I must say that with out a doubt these songs stand up to the greats of those genres. maybe they are no black tambourine (yet) but cmon they def. kick the shit out of tal. gosh. and a million other throw away punky shoegazy bands. The only pretensious people are the knuckleheads online who, thanks to sites like this and pitchfork think they know what they are talking about. go by a scarfand wrap it tightly around you ugly mouths, I remember when all of you used to cry to bright eyes. your not fooling me or the vivian girls. LOVE BIGGEST FAN
These girls rule. Better than most other shit you commenters are into. You like The Knife? Fuck off.
Plus, the real sucky band is The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Fucking terrible.
The interview was embarrassing but the sort of thing that’s typical of upper-middle class suburbanites trying too hard to downplay their background for indie cred (although a song title like “Lake House” is a step in the wrong direction!)
…But really, if the songs were as irresistibly catchy as critics keep saying they are, that wouldn’t keep me away! I dunno, maybe everyone else heard Wipers riffs with production by Phil Spector, but to me it sounded like a weak cut off of a “Girls in the Garage” comp. with shitloads of reverb. I dunno, maybe they made friends with some journalism students in college who wound up writing reviews for brooklynvegan.com or something…
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart arent critical of my consumer choices or how i spend my time after work. Are you missing the point of our outrage you fucktard?
stick to the topic douchebag.
I’d like all of you to know that every song on my iPod was created by an artist who never said anything objectionable.
THIS IS JUST NOT THAT GOOD!!!! the music = they’re stupid. People it adds up. Yes you can be embarrassed for liking them a year ago. Hear Wavves and you’ll forget about these girls in a minute.
Like…like their video, this song is like totally terrible
Maybe if you idiots stopped linking the bath tub interviews in every blog about them, people might stop defining them as the “bath tub girls”, and go back to listening to their music.
Or are you just so proud of the fact that you were the blog that “broke” that story. It’s not a story, people say stupid, misunderstood shit all the time. Anyone who would write off a band for being sarcastic and making jokes is terrible.