Oxford Comma (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist)

Everything about this song is tightly wound: the guitar hooks arrive on precise beats, the bass and drums lock into a groove that feels almost architectural, and Ezra Koenig delivers his vocals with the clipped confidence of someone who has thought through every syllable. Vampire Weekend emerged from Columbia University with a sound that was immediately, bewilderingly its own — Afrobeats polyrhythm filtered through prep-school vocabulary and post-punk energy — and "Oxford Comma" is where that combination snaps into sharpest focus. The production on Contra-era Vampire Weekend was clean to the point of clinical, but here the first album's slight roughness gives it warmth; the guitars have a jangly, almost reggae-adjacent feel that coexists with the baroque keyboard textures. Lyrically the song is a provocation dressed as a grammar debate — it's really about social class, cultural signaling, who gets to set the rules and who has to follow them, all delivered with a sardonic wit that somehow avoids the smug. The emotional register is bright and slightly combative, the musical equivalent of a raised eyebrow. It belongs to the late-2000s moment when indie rock got very interested in world music influences while remaining firmly rooted in white American irony, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist used it correctly: as the sound of smart young people staying up all night in New York, sharp enough to be entertaining but too sincere to be cynical.