Like most good record executives, Mitch Wolk pays fealty to the gods of chance.

"I have a little shrine at home," says the executive vice president of Alternative Distribution Alliance, which markets and distributes releases for independent record companies and is owned by Warner Music Group. "We all pray someone like MTV is going to adopt our bands."

Wolk's prayers were answered this spring when the music channel decided it wanted a piece of the buzz surrounding New York band Vampire Weekend. The band, which has only been around since 2006, not only became a featured act on MTV,  it managed to score the cover of a major American music magazine, Spin—all before its first album came out. You might have to go back to 1968, when the MC5 were on the cover of Rolling Stone, to find the last time that happened. But how it happened could be a lesson in how the modern music industry should—or could—work.

Much of the credit for Vampire Weekend's success goes to the music: a brainy, preppy, tongue-in-cheek take on Afro-pop that has drawn comparisons to Paul Simon and Talking Heads. But the band's continuing popularity—its self-titled album on XL Recordings has passed the 300,000 mark in the U.S. (no mean feat in a shrinking CD market); it is currently the No. 2 album on iTunes; and Vampire Weekend will appear at Europe's major summer music festivals and shows in Japan and Australia—is the result of making wily use of the old and new. In a reversal of sorts, the band's following was established in the blogosphere and made the jump to the mainstream record industry.

In early 2006, four Columbia University students started Vampire Weekend, playing college parties and recording a no-budget, three-song EP. Singer-guitarist Ezra Koenig sent one track, "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa," to one of his favorite music blogs, Benn Loxo du Taccu, which focuses on African pop music. Blogger Matt Yanchyshyn liked the tune enough to post it in October 2006 along with a nice notice. Whether it was the record itself or the notion that a New York band was being touted on an African music board, bloggers at bigger alternative rock sites like Stereogum and Music for Robots jumped on the band, and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" became a popular online track.

"Vampire Weekend was revered by the blogosphere very early on—and most bloggers by and large are educated and more affluent," says Matt Wishnow, founder of the online independent music retailer, Insound.com. "People responded to them being worldly."

Not wanting to be left behind, mainstream media seconded the band's hip cachet. Late Show With David Letterman showcased Vampire Weekend in February; Saturday Night Live followed in March. A raft of general-interest magazines, from New York to GQ to Teen Vogue, profiled the group. "I was surprised by the fashion and lifestyle magazines," Wishnow says. Adds a source close to the band: "MTV definitely wanted to be part of their story. They were very aware of them."