Holiday (Vampire Weekend song)

"Holiday"
Single by Vampire Weekend
from the album Contra
B-side	Ottoman
Released	June 7, 2010
Recorded	2009
Genre	Indie pop
Length	2:18
Label	XL
Writer(s)	Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend singles chronology
"Giving Up the Gun" (2010) "Holiday" (2010) "White Sky" (2010)
Alternative cover cover for 7" single

"Holiday" is Vampire Weekend's third single from their album Contra. The video premiered on MTV.com on May 27, 2010.^[1] The song was featured in Christmas-themed television advertisements for Tommy Hilfiger and Honda^[2] during the 2010 holiday season. The single's b-side, "Ottoman", originally appeared on the soundtrack for the 2008 romantic comedy film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

Music video

The video was directed by The Malloys, who also did "Giving Up the Gun".^[3] It features the band dressed up as 18th century Aristocrats in the present day (presumably), taking a vacation from their jobs and doing very un-monarchical activities including attending at a pool party, driving around California in a '63 Impala and ordering In-N-Out drive-thru, going to the beach, vandalism, assault, among other crazy activities. The video was later featured in VH1's most recent batch of pop up videos.

The concept behind the video was to portray the band as being "fish out of water" in Los Angeles. They used their manager's pool in Hollywood Hills to shoot the pool party scenes. The band did not have a permit to shoot the music video, so all of the driving scenes were shot under technically illegal circumstances, while, ironically, the scenes in which they are assaulting a beach goer and spray painting graffiti were staged and perfectly legal.^[4] During shooting, one band member ripped the pants of his rented costume. While filming the dessert scene, the band became ill due to amount of sugar that the members consumed during the shooting and re-shooting of the scene.

Track listing

1. "Holiday" - 2:18
2. "Ottoman" - 4:02

Chart performance

References