The GRAMMY Museum was thrilled to welcome Vampire Weekend to the Museum’s intimate 200-seat Clive Davis Theater for a conversation moderated by Jenny Eliscu celebrating their album, Only God Was Above Us, discussing their creative process, tour, and more. There was also a special performance.
Only God Was Above Us is the first full-length offering from Vampire Weekend since 2019’s Father of the Bride, which was the band’s third consecutive #1 album on the Billboard 200. Nominated for an Album of the Year GRAMMY, Father of the Bride won Best Alternative Album, marking the band’s second win in that category. Deemed “a masterpiece” by David Fricke of Rolling Stone, the album and its coinciding tour of sold-out arenas, sheds and festival headlining slots, solidified the Tri-State born and bred VW as the preeminent band of the New York rock scene, or in the words of USA Today, “The best indie band of their generation.” 
Only God Was Above Us, the fifth studio album — and first in five years — from Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio and Chris Tomson, was released on April 5, 2024 from Columbia Records. Inspired and haunted by 20th Century New York City, the album was recorded all over the world, from Manhattan to Los Angeles to London and Tokyo. Only God Was Above Us was primarily produced by Koenig and longtime collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid, mixed by Dave Fridmann and mastered by Emily Lazar.  
The beginnings of Only God Was Above Us stretch back to 2019-2020, when Koenig wrote the bulk of the lyrics. The 10-track magnum opus is the product of five years spent refining, reworking and gradually shaping those lyrical and melodic structures to take Vampire Weekend to a new creative peak. The album is direct yet complex, showing the band at once at its grittiest, and also at its most beautiful and melodic.
Only God Was Above Us is nothing short of a definitive statement — one that begins on a playfully profane and confrontational note, and runs a gauntlet of emotions, experiences, characters and stories, before ending on an unambiguous note of acceptance… and quite literally “Hope”:
“I hope you let it go
I hope you let it go 
Our enemy’s invincible
I hope you let it go”