Who is on the cover for Vampire Weekend’s album ‘Contra’?
Vampire Weekend’s preppy aesthetic and soundscape is a perfectly optimistic relic to highlight just how different the world was a mere 15 years ago.
The bright guitar riffs that brought in indie rock and chamber pop together beneath Ezra Koenig’s high-tenored and articulated vocals to create a sunny soundtrack of societal optimism, and of course, it felt like there was something to be optimistic about, in the early stages of this bright new millennium, buoyed by a somewhat healthy relationship with technology.
But as they looked forward, embracing modernity, they also wore their 1980s influences on their sleeve, and Paul Simon and Talking Heads reigned over their discography to create a soundscape that married the optimism of the ’80s with that of the modern day, and thus, on their sophomore album Contra, they decided to create a visual world that encapsulated that.
The album artwork, which almost looks as though it’s been taken straight out of an early, highly saturated Instagram post, was in fact taken by Tod Brody in 1983. “The picture is an actual candid document of a person in New York City in ‘83,” Koenig explained, adding that “those are the clothes that she was wearing and how she did her hair that day. We didn’t hire one of our friends to throw on a vintage Polo shirt or anything.”
Found by Rostam Batmanglij, who simply searched ‘New York 1983’ on the image platform Flickr, the photo ended up highlighting the band’s deliberate attempt to marry the eras. In Koenig’s worlds, the photo allowed for the model to seem as though she could have “inhabited the same world” of ‘06, despite having been originally placed in ‘83, and thus highlighted the cultural lineage that existed through the band’s music. But that carefree image of Brody’s model ultimately came at a cost for the band and undercut the subtle thematic intent of displaying cultural optimism.
Why did the cover cause issues for Vampire Weekend?
Well, in 2010, the year the album was released, Vampire Weekend, along with XL Recordings and Brody, were sued by Ann Kirsten Kennis, the woman who identified herself as the model on the cover, and made a claim for $2million against all involved, on the grounds that they used the photo without her permission.
Kennis then claimed that the release forms she signed with the model agency in question, of owning the photo, were in fact forged, and then later stated that Brody did not take the photo and that it was, in fact, taken by her mother. Brody later disputed that claim, explaining that he had a physical copy of the photo for 26 years until Vampire Weekend discovered it on his Flickr page and bought it for five thousand dollars. Kennis’ own former agent, Sue Charney, told Vanity Fair, “To me it is very clearly a Polaroid taken at a casting session”.
In December, Vampire Weekend then protected themselves by filing their own lawsuit against Brody, arguing that he would be liable for any damages Kennis would receive, due to misrepresentation, but luckily, that wasn’t needed, for Kennis dropped her lawsuit against XL Recordings and Vampire Weekend a year later, after they paid Kennis an undisclosed sum.
