About vibey

I grow old, I grow old and language is dribbling away from my control. Case in point: this article, which describes a mid-70s Joni Mitchell album as “vibey” without explaining what that might mean. To confuse matters, it does feature contributions from the vibraphone player Victor Feldman, but I don’t think that’s what seals it. A social media callout prompted some interesting possibilities, including “more atmospheric than formally tight” which fits but could also fit supermarket muzak. And then we find that Hoxton Square is similarly vibey and it looks as if it’s a word, like “cool” and “hip”, that served a very precise purpose until the estate agents got hold of it.