That kind of response piqued interest in the record industry. Traditionally, record companies signed bands, then marketed them by trying to influence and co-opt gatekeepers like radio programmers and music journalists, but bloggers have proved to be elusive targets.

"I don't know if this is advice for bands, but it's definitely advice for labels," says Wishnow, who points out that many of Vampire Weekend's earliest champions, including the young A&R executive who signed them to XL Recordings, were working in New York, probably moving in the same circles. "If they want to refine their online eyes and ears, they have to ask, 'What do bloggers want to see when they hold up a mirror?"

Other unknown bands, most noticeably Brooklyn's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, had broken through on the internet only to spurn the traditional record business—and pay the price in weak subsequent sales. In addition to pairing with established independent label outfits XL, Beggars Group, and A.D.A., Vampire Weekend hired manager Ian Montone, a Los Angeles attorney whose ultra-hip client roster also includes the White Stripes, the Shins, the Raconteurs, and M.I.A. 

"[Vampire Weekend has] a D.I.Y. sensibility but they're very cognizant that there's only so much you can do yourself," says Lesley Bleakley, C.E.O. of Beggars Group USA, which owns XL and several other independent labels. 

Indeed, with the de-emphasis on CD sales, there's a case to be made that musicians, no matter how they break, need an established infrastructure more than ever to deal with all the different ways music is being sold. A.D.A., for example, not only gets CDs into stores; through Warner Music the company has licensing agreements around the world for internet, mobile, and other new technology opportunities that a band like Vampire Weekend couldn't afford to research and negotiate on their own.

At the end of the day, Vampire Weekend might be one of those bands like the Police, which in the late 1970s established itself by recording and traveling on a shoestring, proving just as significant for its approach to the business as for its music.

Industry veteran Peter Jenner, who manages Billy Bragg and handled Pink Floyd, the Clash, and T.Rex, is a little more jaded but no less impressed. "It's very hard to get noticed, especially in the blizzard of the internet," he says. "You've got to be different and that's what they're doing. 

"It's now referred to as a U.S.P.—a Unique Selling Point," he says. "In the old days that was what you called 'a gimmick.'"