Welcome/Hitting the Ground Running

I'm an angry little man. There are a lot of things I hate in this world. But I feel that I'm not really an excessively negative person, I just like to hear myself bitch. Therefore the concept behind Hate/Nothate is simple: for every one thing I hate, try to find one somewhat related thing I do not hate. It's kind of my challenge to myself to prove the world doesn't suck that hard. Just between you and me, I don't think I can do it, but boy am I gonna try and prove me wrong.

I fucking hate...

Vampire Weekend- Never have I gone from loving a band to hating it so quickly. Admittedly, this is probably more my fault than it is theirs, as they seem to have steadfastly refused to change anything between their albums "Vampire Weekend" and "Contra." When I first heard the self-titled release it made me feel giddy, like a hipster school-girl strung out on sugary, watered-down Paul Simon songs. When I first heard "Contra" it made me feel angry, like a slightly older, disillusioned hipster school-girl having vacuous, empty sex to a bad bootleg of Paul Simon songs.

I actually don't hate...

Ra Ra Riot/Discovery- The apparent butt-buddies of Vampire Weekend have released some seriously hot shit in "The Orchard." Ignoring fruit and growing-based puns, it's a great album full of rich, orchestrated pop-rock which I really only compare to Vampire Weekend in my mind because I heard them putting cellos and bullshit behind indie rock first. But seriously, it's the best Vampire Weekend album that Vampire Weekend never touched. Coincidentally, Discovery, the bastard side-project consisting of equal parts Ra Ra Riot and Vampire Weekend is also awesome, and I feel perfectly safe saying that having only heard one song. Between the cutesy vocals and trashy, thumping beat it answered the question I never knew I was asking: what if Usher were a white guy whose two most important possessions were his keyboard and sweater?