The Lumineers

Asked elsewhere:

Just noise and screaming and no musical value at all. (Colonel Poo) wrote this on thread Mumford and Sons on board I Love Music on Dec 13, 2012

Have we got a thread about post-Mumford shitbags the Lumineers?

We do now. Partially because uh.

Jill Mapes ‏@jumonsmapes

words about music, written by and for the Nicholas Sparks set. I have a lot of feelings but just, why?

maura johnston ‏@maura

@jumonsmapes i closed tab after the fifth word

I knew not to click as soon as I saw the "hellogiggles" in the url. This song seems to be inescapable on the Chicago "adult alternative" station. Fwiw, I don't find it quite as rage making as Mumfarts.

Well here, suffer through this bit on its own, then.

Now, on days where I am feeling a little lost or lonely, I play this song with a little extra volume behind is because I feel The Lumineers ultimately believe in the concept of belonging as well. You can hear it in their voices when they belt out my favorite lyrics with soul and heart in a way that only someone who believes can; it makes me truly thankful for those that I know I always belong to…

“I belong with you, you belong with me,

You’re my sweetheart.

I belong with you, you belong with me,

You’re my sweet.”

Well, yeah, awful.

Doesn't this belong on the 'worst music writing' thread? Everything about that is vile.

Oh it should belong there for sure. But this band! (I almost interviewed them and am kinda glad that bullet was dodged...)

i hope mark e. smith throws a bottle at these guys too

Y'all are mean. I'd unapologetically rather listen to these guys and Mumfords than any music by the Fall these days.

man I hate the Lumineers

― she was giving it to two friends ...Aaay! (crüt), Tuesday, December 11, 2012 9:02 PM (4 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a friend had an extra ticket to see them last year like right after their album came out and they were 'becoming popular' but there was really no way to predict that they'd have a gigantic top 10 hit. was an OK show for what it was, don't dislike them at any gut level like i do w/ Mumford, etc. that's as close as this thread will get to an apologist, i think.

the fall rules doggie

only decent british rap group imo

I used to love them but their shtick is way more tired than folk 2.0

Like I guess I'd rather listen to vaguely pleasant music sometimes? I don't feel bad about that

either way mark e smith throwing things at ppl is better than the lumineers, music aside

i would rather listen to almost anything over ilx house band the fall

feel like only one of these guys should be allowed to wear that kind of hat
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/78661518/The+Lumineers++PNG+3.png
people love this band (and generally this kind of music) here in Colorado. it's pretty benign.

what the fuck is with bands wearing old timey hats and suspenders jesus christ

"Americana"

it'd be funny if the girl wore one of those hats too

al l these hoofin and hollerin around the campfire bands need to get fuckin jobs

has the term emo-grass been coined yet? probably.

haha maura i thought you were directly addressing me for a sec

you're the job creator, obv

fuck this ipod commercial horseshit

is no one going to talk about their horrible horrible name?

you will notice that none of them are showing teeth in that awful photo
they need to be cancelled immediately

when i found out abt these guys i spent 5 mins laughing at the fact that ppl were taking a song named "ho hey" seriously

i like this song just fine

My girlfriend and I reluctantly went along to see them play with another couple who were big fans . Left after three songs. That said, I didn't find it nearly as intolerable as Mumford and Sons. At one point the suspenders guy (I think he must have been told to wear them at all times) started playing banjo, which sounded absolutely god awful. After we left, they apparently played "Ho Hey" twice—acoustic and a "real rockin'" version.

I was just stunned at how huge they were. I always thought the Americana thing reached its peak with Ryan Adams, Iron and Wine, and those kinds of groups.

I totally completely dislike everything about this phony no good fedora wearing smiling like they don't know any better band. Not sure why it matters, or if it matters why, but they are insufferable.

Also, they are called The Lumineers. I hate them.

SNL tonight was my first exposure to them, I believe. I knew they were around, but I'd been successful in never hearing or really seeing them. My hands were turning into fists as I sat there watching.

man i wish i could really get that worked up about this kinda thing nowadays, think after mumford & sons i can't even give a shit anymore

(that being said i've only heard this "ho hey" joint like once on a commercial)

(that being said i've only heard this "ho hey" joint like once on a commercial)

exactly ^^^^
i'm not worked up, i'm just repulsed

so when I go to a piano bar when I'm 60 I'll have no idea what half of the songs are

that's ok

i think "of monsters and men" are worse in terms of corny indie these days but yeah these guys can suck a fuck

The bass drum at the front of the stage wasn't miked. Dude kept hitting it, no sound. Maybe it needed suspenders for it to work.

was already having one of those "what is the point of our pitiful striving when the frozen nothingness of extinguished consciousness is all that awaits" kinda mornings and then i saw those hats.

ok just listened to this hey ho thingy on youtube - not really sure what people are getting worked up about. I remember a time when breakaway "alternative" hits involved the likes of Live or Bush

I object to their constant smiling and phony earnest lyrics and their terrible awful name.

fwiw gis for "lumineers" is a thing of beauty

i do like this but i am a posner apologist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuBlZ9jW2Qk

I always get a little resentful when an otherwise mediocre band is propelled to stardom by stumbling onto an easy but catchy hook gimmick (hey/ho, or the whistle thing in that pb&j song)

also, they have a vaguely evangelical stink to them. i will not be surprised if

the hats

Yeah they have a ”youth group” vibe

high on life

googling hasn't turned up anything yet

I dunno I kinda like them as a mainstream "indie" folk type band but they're not exactly Andrew Bird or Ryan Adams or something...

Their lyrics are really simple and bad, I can't imagine writing an article about how uplifting or deep they are. These fucking smilin' banjo hat bands should not be the face of Americana though, it makes the whole alt-country pursuit look like a fucking joke.

I like the phrase "smilin' banjo hat bands"

Nailed

these fuckin smilin banjo hat bands are running this here town

someone on twitter called them "indie barn people music" ... i lol'd

I knew not to click as soon as I saw the "hellogiggles" in the url

don't have an opinion on this band yet but this is the most moronic website I've ever seen in my life. it's like Jean Teasdale crossed with Pamplemoose

SNL tonight was my first exposure to them, I believe. I knew they were around, but I'd been successful in never hearing or really seeing them. My hands were turning into fists as I sat there watching.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, January 20, 2013 6:04 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Their presentation of that first song was so annoying---they were kind of like an Up With People Disney World take on folk music

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130120094036/snl/images/2/2e/SNL_The_Lumineers_temporary.png

"Civil War Wave"
http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2013/01/fuck-lumineers-and-all-other-mumford-sons-civil-war-wave-sounding-bullshit.html

I'm actually kind of fascinated by this aesthetic, tbh -- like how and why it's taken root so strongly right now. It goes hand in hand with all those Etsy-designed weddings held at farms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPKe9OfWs-M

I'm pretty ambivalent about The Lumineers, but I don't find any "THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN white supremacist confederate flag... etc" in them at all.

Yeah not at all

Do some pop music listeners simply like it better than the euro-disco beat hits

I also find it strange that this aesthetic is big right now. Is it just freak-folk reaching the mainstream? Too bad the bands that make it big, like these guys and Mumfords, sound more like banjo versions of U2 songs rather than the old, weird Americana of Joanna Newsom or Devendra Banhart. It kind of makes me want to go back and listen to some old Palace Brothers records (by old I mean from the 1990s).

"Civil War Wave"
http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2013/01/fuck-lumineers-and-all-other-mumford-sons-civil-war-wave-sounding-bullshit.html

http://i.imgur.com/GQ1ahuL.png

I also find it strange that this aesthetic is big right now. Is it just freak-folk reaching the mainstream? Too bad the bands that make it big, like these guys and Mumfords, sound more like banjo versions of U2 songs rather than the old, weird Americana of Joanna Newsom or Devendra Banhart.

yah based on the description in this thread i expected them to sound completely different than they do. then i realized i had heard the ho hey song in a drugstore a couple wks ago and at the time i thought 'oh weird i guess this is a new song, but something about the vocals sounds like a very particular strain of nineties alt'

Oh this folk-pop thing is a collegtown staple, has been for several years, even before Mumford invaded. Only a matter of time 'til some rising star of it brings their New Christy Minstrels, Peter Paul & Mary etc collection up for Uncut and/or Mojo's perusal, if they haven't already. Really liked the girl when she was playing cello on SNL. So stern, *then* so smiley--then so stern again. then...also, she's cute and I like cellos. But the yelping in "Ho Hey" was an instant pissah, way back when World Cafe previewed it.

I'm actually kind of fascinated by this aesthetic, tbh -- like how and why it's taken root so strongly right now. It goes hand in hand with all those Etsy-designed weddings held at farms.

yeh tho i don't think there's any big meaning in it such as ppl searching for perceived authenticity of a bygone era or craving a respite from feeling smothered by digital environments or what have you. think it's more just another direction to look towards for entertainment, novelty. not much different than why ppl go to medieval times or something

Yeah this whole Victorian-era throwback thing doesn't seem to have anything to do with Lost Causers or Neoconfederates or anything like that at all. Now, one could say it seems nostalgic for the time of Manifest Destiny but that is a completely different can of worms.

I guess some variation of folk-pop has long been a college staple. Though this new style seems to be crossing over a bit more than the perennial singer-songwriter, coffeehouse folk that produces occasional stars like Ani Difranco or Dar Williams, who enjoy a small but dedicated following. This new style is more anthemic, stadium-ready, band-oriented.

xxp

I guess you could blame The Decemberists but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here...

folk-pop=quaintly poignant cuteness, not all aggressive and hairy and (sometimes) musically Downtown like Ani--see enduring success of Cracker Barrel restaurants etc. But where is our Gilbert O'Sullivan?

no, let's

xp

oh yeah, the decembrists started that whole chimneysweeper sea shanty bullshit. as far as youth trendz go old timey stuff just a cornier version of whatever else people get into.

Yeah the Decemberists were good sometimes, before this latest REM clone album, which is so popular. And I like Ani, sometimes Andrew Bird, nothing against the poppier aspect in principle either (like Gilbert O, Mamas and Papas)

Pop's always been part of the Wainwright-Roches clan's appeal too.

A friend of mine just linked to this on Facebook. Seems relevant:

http://stereogum.com/1203672/phillip-phillips-the-lumineers-and-the-mumford-ization-of-pop/top-stories/lead-story/

My gf told me her teen and tween nices listen to the Lumineers and they're playing 5,000 seat places already. These young listeners are not discovering this sound through the college sound influences and antecedents

nieces

No of course it's not collegetown only, but that's the launching pad/farm league.

Because with the overall collapse of old music biz models, shows are so important for exposure; collegetowns have venues on and off campus. schools aren't that big on booking death metal etc.

Something like the Les Miz movie seems to pertain also: miserablism padded by nerf music

Maybe the fact that as a teen I loved (and still do) The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has something to do with the fact that this latest batch of "costumed" folk-poppers doesn't really bother me a whit.

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/music/images/artists/542x305/ac8a45f8-5520-4463-9fda-f63f8844cb50.jpg

"Hey, Soul Sister" kinda feels like the unofficial beginning of this trend, that was really the only 'acoustic' song on pop radio besides Taylor Swift for a while before the Lumineers/Phillip Phillips/Ed Sheeran onslaught

I also find it strange that this aesthetic is big right now. Is it just freak-folk reaching the mainstream?
― o. nate, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 16:06 (47 minutes ago) Permalink

I used to think that the way these things worked was that a sound would become popular in the "underground" or "indie" scenes and then gradually bubble up to the surface, becoming steadily more popular, but now I have a different theory that there's kind of a death and rebirth cycle where something (like vintagey freakfolk) gets played out beyond belief, has a dormant period, and THEN explodes into the mainstream

interesting idea. i remember when the italians do it better style was big for a while, then disappeared for a few years, then reappeared in the drive soundtrack. no idea if it ever took off from there.

i kind of dismiss people as having indie goggles on if they think that the inevitable return of acoustic guitars to the pop charts every decade or so has anything to do with 'freak folk'

for me this thing ties in completely with the old timey handicraft fetish that's all over Pinterest

yeah it def feels of a piece with old timey zooey deschanel "i like to listen to vinyl while i knit my bangs" culture

Anyway, I might of mentioned this elsewhere but I'm a huge fan or I guess more "serious" stuff that is somewhat related to this recent epidemic of Mumfordsarcoma; like Joe Buck Yourself, Those Poor Bastards, Johnny Flynn, Band of Horses, Mason Jennings, Avett Brothers, etc...

What about bands that straddle this fence between earnest folk/alt-country expressions and indie/emo/pop stuff like First Aid Kit, Tallest Man on Earth, Fleet Foxes, Bowerbirds, etc?

If you hate all this kind of stuff (Edward III!) you can go ahead and not engage with this line of inquiry. TIA!

Also, in a very rare occurence: some dude OTM.

i kind of dismiss people as having indie goggles on if they think that the inevitable return of acoustic guitars to the pop charts every decade or so has anything to do with 'freak folk'

― the legend of bigger yansh (some dude), Tuesday, January 22, 2013 12:01 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's not "acoustic guitars," it's guys in turn-of-the-century garb playing acoustic guitars. No one is accusing Jason Mraz of being descended from freak folk.

Because with the overall collapse of old music biz models, shows are so important for exposure; collegetowns have venues on and off campus. schools aren't that big on booking death metal etc.

This makes sense to me. It seems this style has been bubbling under for a while on small stages, summer festivals, busking at street fairs, etc. Over the past few years, I've seen more and more of these old-timey acoustic bands around. I guess there's something to be said for the versatility of a small-ensemble format that doesn't require amplification. The Two Man Gentleman Band were one of the forerunners, I think. I like some of these groups, like Tuba Skinny.

i kind of dismiss people as having indie goggles on if they think that the inevitable return of acoustic guitars to the pop charts every decade or so has anything to do with 'freak folk'

Fair point. Though I think these bands did help to make the neo-Appalachian aesthetic fashionable. The axis of influence probably runs more through fashion mags and photo spreads, which are usually controlled by big-city hipster taste, rather than through people actually hearing the music.

I don't hate all this kind of stuff but imo we can pack the decemberists on the same rocketship used to shoot the lumineers and mumford & w/e into space

Yeah I'm a bit like Viceroy, I dig Band of Horses and Avett Brothers...on one level that Ho Hey song is kinda catch but that then they just drag an aesthetic that I like all the way into ukeleles/mandolins/banjos and suddenly you're up to your eyeballs in vests and petticoats and pennyfarthing bicycles and I just have to draw the line

Not as offensive as Mumford by any stretch, but definitely need to be punted off the nearest pier

*catchy

yeah and even though for instance young Bobby Dylan took a chance on his major label debut by covering Charlie Patton, who was considered too rough even by some fans of vintage blues, not to mention programmers of folk-pop, he always had some cute pop appeal, with the squeaky talkin' blues etc. The Byrds certainly had radio-aimed folk pop appeal, covering Dylan, and even/especially Seeger's (and whichever Old Testament prophet's) "Turn Turn Turn", ditto Judy Collins, especially when she folded in Dylan, Donovan, Beatles, early Cohen, Mitchell, Newman etc.

that's the college in the collegiate of course, but still.

It's not "acoustic guitars," it's guys in turn-of-the-century garb playing acoustic guitars.

― space phwoar (Hurting 2)

Aside from how terrible the music is I don't see how this is any different than the impulse towards Steampunk or Victorian-era-fetishization in general. It's more than a bit ignorant -- given that it was a horrible time to live in for most everyone, but a lot of the trappings I think are arguable quite attractive -- horse drawn carriages, the clothes, moonshining, fancy beards...

I dunno tho, I've always argued that 20th century fashion is an abomination and we should still be dressing like we did 100/200 years ago. Elmo Argument has argued with me extensively about this.

xp cant imagine any folk less freaky than The Lumineers

I blame Arcade Fire for all this anthemic "Hey!" bullshit

maybe that's the part I like

My problem with Ho Hey is mostly how generic the underlying song is. Like just stick a rock beat under it instead of a corny mandolin chunk and you have a standard issue soft rock radio song, which is not to say soft-rock radio is inherently bad, I just feel like the ratio of folky schtick to actual folk influence on this song is very, very high.

maybe it's just romanticizing the past and looking to reclaim lost purity and all that garbage. there's a total antiseptic, disneyland vibe with the 19th century this style's going for. there's some pretty cool stuff from the past, but it sure as hell isn't pickling beets in a jar.

they need to bring in dr folkenstein

more slavery, less beet-pickling

Django

xp if not beet pickling, then slavery. you make a good point.

Aside from how terrible the music is I don't see how this is any different than the impulse towards Steampunk or Victorian-era-fetishization in general. It's more than a bit ignorant -- given that it was a horrible time to live in for most everyone, but a lot of the trappings I think are arguable quite attractive -- horse drawn carriages, the clothes, moonshining, fancy beards...

I think the old-time rural Appalachia fetishizing is a bit different from the Steampunk or Victorian-era fetishizing though. Steampunk is more like H.G. Wells or Jules Verne or something, with an element of sci-fi weirdness in it. Also, it's not the horse-drawn carriages, fancy beards, top hats and tails that are being fetishized. This look is a bit humbler, scruffy and worn, kind of hobo-chic. Not to get all Marxist here, but perhaps there's an element of economic consciousness manifesting itself in a generation that has not been able to catch a break. Plus these clothes are probably not hard to find in vintage thrift shops for reasonable prices.

"Vintage 90s. 1990s. Hahaha."

"Die."

hmmm... good points o. nate.

edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros have a lot to answer for imo

I pickle the hell outta some beets but this stuff makes me sick. EIII otm.

Also I like ruffles and lace up boots but this home family sweetheart safety baloney makes me retch.

there's something too cute and insincere about it

"Plus these clothes are probably not hard to find in vintage thrift shops for reasonable prices."

this certainly helps... Additionally, from a fashion point of view these guys are not exactly creating something new and interesting. The clothes in that Stereogum picture are just slightly less primped versions of outfits that have been in every J Crew catalog for 5 years.

suspenders = vintage never should have happened, imo

but perhaps there's an element of economic consciousness manifesting itself in a generation that has not been able to catch a break.

could be mistaken but i was under the impression that mumford & co are all old money

edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros have a lot to answer for imo

Naw, most of that first record, at least, sounds like it's from the 60s.

outfits that have been in every J Crew catalog for 5 years.

I've thought about this connection, too. Or Anthropologie, maybe.

I mean so much wrong here.

http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/the-lumineers-on-their-two-grammy-nominations-is-this-a-joke-20121210/1000x600/20121210-the-lumineers-02-x600-1355172030.jpg

1) Suspenders with white tee shirt
2) TWO guys wearing basically the same dumb hat
3) guy on the right just needs a different face altogether, looks like woody harrelson after a very severe bar brawl
4) girl is smiling like it's a camp photo

this home family sweetheart safety baloney

Coincidence that "Home" is the title of hits for both Edward Sharpe and Phillip Phillips?

I don't entirely hate this kind of music -- rousing sing-alongs can sometimes be catchy -- but the aesthetic as a whole is definitely hard to embrace.

most of that first record, at least, sounds like it's from the 60s.
--Johnny Fever

are you suggesting that e.g. Lumineers/Of Monsters and Men sound old-timey? bc to these ears they sound a lot like "home"

it's funny that there have now been 6 different posters using the phrase "old timey" itt but nobody has traced this trend back to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack at all yet.

6 different posters including me, i should say

[3) guy on the right just needs a different face altogether,

lol

it's funny that there have now been 6 different posters using the phrase "old timey" itt but nobody has traced this trend back to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack at all yet.

― big yansh theory (some dude), Tuesday, 22 January 2013 21:05 (3 minutes ago) Permalink

Believe it or not, the following stream of thought went through my head "Haha, yeah, slavery. I should post something about how they should ironically drive railroad spikes or break rocks with hammers on the "hey / ho" part. Wait, does something like that happen in O Brother Where Art Thou? Oh yeah, O Brother Where Art Thou."

are you suggesting that e.g. Lumineers/Of Monsters and Men sound old-timey? bc to these ears they sound a lot like "home"

No, I'm saying that most of the Edward Sharpe debut doesn't sound like "Home".

No, I'm saying that most of the Edward Sharpe debut doesn't sound like "Home".
--Johnny Fever

Oh. Right. Well, carry on then :)

The worst part is that I know and love lots of people who like music like this, and I can't explain to them why I hate it. I think we could also consider adding Ryan Gosling and his chorus of children to this group too.

My friends and I have labeled this stuff "goat folk" due to the vocal stylings. I tend to parse the meaning of each song as "somebody took my mandolin and now I feel ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-ad"

hahah

lol looks like denver is officially the center of the faux-lk movement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/arts/music/the-lumineers-strange-road-to-the-top-10.html?pagewanted=all
"(Mr. Fraites had already begun wearing his trademark suspenders.)"

Therefore I BLAME YOU.

first the broncos now this

FUCK YOU DENVER

i have a really hard time not thinking of the lumineers as a band made up of special-needs ppl

i'm gonna ride this gravy train all the way to the moon motherfuckers. where can i get some suspenders and a mandolin.

a lotta gems in that article--
“It’s really short and catchy, and people can remember it after they’ve heard it once or twice,” said John Ivey, senior vice president for programming at the Clear Channel radio chain and program director of KIIS-FM in Los Angeles.
^^^this guy has figured it OUT.

*adds John Ivey to hitlist*

With its folksy guitar and its foot-stamping, tambourine-driven beat “Ho Hey” arrived as a startling anomaly in the pop Top 10, where it’s surrounded by Auto-Tuned voices and electronic beats...It’s one more hint of a pendulum swing back toward naturalism in pop.

when this pendulum hits 2*Pi phase, please hand me my revolver

lol "naturalism" -- surely the Lumineers are bigger fakes than any autotuned recording star

they are named after a fake tooth product!

how could they represent anything natural?!

the lumineers CD was in the box at the end of Seven. They are the embodiment of human rage

OK, so we've probably discussed this already, but all this minor-key mining, hat-wearing, suspenders-suspendin', kick-drum kickin', guitar-strummin', wordless-chorus yelping stuff - this, Mumford, Of Monsters and Men and probably a bunch of other stuff on the radio - this is all the Arcade Fire's fault, right? I love the Arcade Fire, tbh, and think they're much more than this, but man, their impact has been as destructive as U2's.

Everybody in these bands, man and woman alike, reminds me of:

http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/files/2009/05/blossom.jpg

keep thinking thread title says lumerians, who are infinity better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG_QFQq65t0

i am very cross at this "two dudes wearing hats" business, it's either one dude wears a hat or all three of them wear hats, no splitting the difference. i vote the suspenders guy gets to wear the hat, the other guy can coast on his vaguely cary elwes-esque looks.

lumerians is good, best thing to come out of this lumineers thing

lol "naturalism" -- surely the Lumineers are bigger fakes than any autotuned recording star

― ron paulstretch (crüt), Wednesday, 6 February 2013 19:12 (6 days ago) Permalink

I think that comment (which I don't disagree with) indicates what I've skimmed to be the overriding complaint against the Lumineers, which is that they're merely branding/positioning themselves in some sort of idyllic and fake (to be charitable) musical setting. But I don't know - the beginning of that article linked to toward the top,

"The Lumineers are simply superb, which is the reason they are the focus of this installment of Lyrical Life Lessons. Seriously, listening to them makes me want to learn to play a unique, unappreciated instrument like the banjo and beg to be a part of their front porch-loving indie rock trio."

doesn't make me think that they're normatively 'bad'. I'm not a fan of their music from what I can tell, but I also don't think that there's anything especially holy about listening to Replacements or VU or even Kanye West and then being inspired to go out and start a band or start producing music.

The sheer artifice of the Lumineers (which again from what I can tell, as in I don't claim to be an expert on them since I only saw photos of their Grammy performance and listened to the one song once on YouTube) seems to be quite up front. Are they not more honestly shitgrinning than Kings of Leon, who were once pretty respected (I think?) and who subsequently fell off/got super popular around the same time that their back story was debunked (from what I recall)? I'm doing something I don't really like doing, which is to 'speak up' for something, as it were, just for the sake of it. But it does seem to me that the choices they make are choices, just like anyone else, and it seems like they're being criticized for their 'choiceness', as if the guy from Fiery Furnaces hasn't made some obvious choices about presentation and aesthetics. (Which I say just because that's what I'm listening to right at this moment.)

tbh i have no business snarking on the lumineers because of their outfits -- i love bob dylan, the band etc. and those dudes are the kings of let's-play-americana-dress-up. it's all BS ultimately. instead, i'll just dislike the lumineers' music. it is boring and annoying. and josh otm about arcade fire, they have destroyed rock n roll for a whole generation.

The "naturalism" part is more a criticism of the article's author. Don't know if the lumineers themselves lack self awareness about their act. But their music sure is bad.

Given that I like a fair bit of '80s-'90s alt-country and couldn't care less about authenticity or w/e, I can only attribute my aversion to Mumford/Lumineers/Civil Wars/etc to the basic weakness of the tunes and stultifying harmonies.

Which, btw, the harmonies are sort of key here -- they do derive straight from pallid coffeehouse folk, not bluegrass/country. There's no high lonesome there at all.

thread worth it for introducing me to the Lumerians

It's not just the lack of high lonesome or whatever, it's the phony inorganic dynamics of it (ie bluster) that plays up anthem-ness at the expense of craft. It's all about cheap moves for the benefit of the cheap seats. A famous comparison would be Dolly's version of "I WIll Always Love You" vs. Whitney's. I don't mind Whitney's, really, but subtle it is not, and the subtly and restraint of Dolly's is pretty incredible in retrospect.

Also, these dorks clearly all woke up one morning, set aside their Coldplay records, then went shopping for hats, suspenders and two-day face scruff.

yes i am enjoying those guys xp

http://i45.tinypic.com/iy34va.jpg

Iiieeeeiiiiii willl wait for yoooooouuuuuuuu

please don't desecrate whitney's memory w/ suspenders
(also lol)

hahah!

i like lumerians a lot, but it's hard to top the original version of that song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS8ZfVTE4SM

Further evidence for the theory that Arcade Fire (who I also love) have inadvertently ruined everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoRkntoHkIE

that's equal parts Arcade Fire and Dave Matthews, judging from the American Idol performances I caught of him

the oh's sound distinctively coldplay to me

Well Coldplay only stepped up the woah-oh-ohs after the first Arcade Fire album.

Totally. Markus Dravs worked on "Neon Bible," which he followed by working on "Viva La Vida" as well as, later, both Mumford records. From his wiki entry:

"He has also worked with Coldplay on their 2008 album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. According to Markus: "Chris Martin called me and told me he had a conversation with Win Butler, who suggested, 'He’ll kick you into shape' which was poetic for 'He will do his utmost in helping you to develop your artistic horizon.'"

Case closed.

Or wait, does that mean Markus Dravs broke music?

"Originally based in Ramsey, New Jersey, they later moved to New York City. After battling the city's cutthroat music scene and high cost of living, the two decided to expand their horizons. They packed up and headed for Denver, Colorado."

- wikipedia

"He will d-ooOOoo his utm-Oh-st in helping you-oooh-OOOh to develop your artistic horiz-Oh-oh-OHHHHHHHH oh-oh oh-OHHHHHHHHHn"

According to Markus: "Chris Martin called me and told me he had a conversation with Win Butler, who suggested, 'He’ll kick you into shape' which was poetic for 'He will do his utmost in helping you to develop your artistic horizon.'"

Good christ, an unholy trinity of horror.

"NEEDS MORE YODELLING."

"Yeah but--"

"I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU AND I WILL BEAT YOUR ASS."

According to Tojo: "Mussolini called me and told me he had a conversation with Hitler, who suggested, 'He’ll kick you into shape' which was poetic for 'He will do his utmost in helping you to develop your artistic horizon.'"

good that they translate, I don't speak poetic

It's all about cheap moves for the benefit of the cheap seats.

I could understand it all more if I could actually discern the cheap moves, or any moves at all. What confuses me is that the music seems so inert but elicits such enthusiasm. I had firsthand experience with this, wading through an unbelievably huge Mumford crowd at Bonnaroo (I was trying to get to another, much smaller stage, where Loretta Lynn was playing). I heard about 10 minutes of Mumford's set, and it was such a weird disconnect between the dead air coming from the stage and the obviously very sincere excitement of the kids on the lawn.

Which is to say, it obviously works for somebody. But it operates at a frequency I can't hear.

If anything I'd credit the relative lack of dead air. I've seen Mumford, too, and I was struck by how every single one of their songs featured some broad, shout-along, (frequently wordless) chorus, and wasted no time getting there. Didn't require a lot of actual listening from the crowd. In fact, when I saw them they tried to do an acoustic set mid-show, un-amplified at the front of the stage, and the fans were so loud and disruptive they pretty much had to cut it short. "I Will Wait," indeed. These dudes don't make you wait at all. There's no drama at all. The music is all bluster. Or as I once wrote in a review: "Mumford & Sons’ sophomore release “Babel” doesn’t hit any beats that its smash debut “Sigh No More” failed to hit. “Beat,” of course, being the operative word here, as Mumford & Sons’ M.O. has thus far been to over-inflate boilerplate folk and roots cliches to anthem size and beat you over the head with them."

Yeah, I guess that's true. But it's like being beat over the head with puff balls. I barely notice it's happening.

woah i didn't know you were into puffing, no judgement here

Ho (puff)
Hey (puff)

Time for me to post. I have more to do with fashion than music, but do fashion for music peeps... Including, (for fifteen minutes (at least) the fucktards. #1. They did not show at their post grammy celebration, which leads me to believe they actually thought they had more talent than others nominated... In the Americana category, they lost to a legend and a soon to be legend... (John fullbright) and really: best new artist? Only one worse than fun. Would have been the lumineers. Keep it up guys. "Jer" you look like a carnie, Wes, you look like a semi attractive dumbass, Neyla : good gosh please stop incessantly trying to pull off the moo- moo. And for the love... Please let someone else do your hair and makeup. Kidz bopz 2012 will certainly have the more "rockin" version of "ho hey" as their fist track. Can we rename it "hey ho's (please write something original)?

Also, their "timely" new Wes/Neyla duet reeks of shit and desperation, but thank goodness they got the supremely ugly dude out of it. Only thing worse than his suspenders is his "Jerry's kids" outfit for Grammys.
Swallowing vomit

Lumerians rule.

Kidz bopz 2012 will certainly have the more "rockin" version of "ho hey" as their fist track.

hahaha

There's a sociology essay out there for someone who can trace the through-line between all this campfire stadium rock, the Jesse Thorn Axis of Overly Mannered Urbane Hipsters, and Manic Pixie Dream Girls. I'm too tired to do it myself and it would just sound like conspiracy theory.

At least Too-Rye-Ay had some great songs on it.

Lumerians rule

Let me fix that for you...

LUMERIANS RULE!!!

ok much better

There's a sociology essay out there for someone who can trace the through-line between all this campfire stadium rock, the Jesse Thorn Axis of Overly Mannered Urbane Hipsters, and Manic Pixie Dream Girls.

Basically:

http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/files/2009/05/blossom.jpg

to/plus

http://www.cinecultist.com/archives/natalie_portman_garden_state_interview_top.jpg

Hey guys, can we play, too?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I14nsKf1sb8

My coworker is going to psychfest, has added lumerians to his list to see. all thanks to the lumineers.

"Hey, Soul Sister" kinda feels like the unofficial beginning of this trend, that was really the only 'acoustic' song on pop radio besides Taylor Swift for a while before the Lumineers/Phillip Phillips/Ed Sheeran onslaught

Good call. But, for all the surprise and confusion over where the Lumineers' hobo/suspenders/dumb hats image came from, Taylor was mining the same kind of Depression Chic in her "Mean" video. You could also go back to R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" video, where they incorporated a mandolin and dressed up in pseudo-Amish costumes for another example of the same vibe. People trying to find some contemporary meaning ("They're dressing like hobos because their generation got screwed by the financial crisis") in the Lumineers' image need to step back and recognize that this kind of acoustic folk revival has been part of pop music since The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, at least. Gillian Welch is a good example of a 90s artist who put forth the same sort of Dust Bowl image as the Lumineers (although she was a much better songwriter, in my opinion). But there's nothing new under the sun.

Eh, I dunno. There was always all that Jack Johnson hammock rock before "Hey Soul Sister."

wtf is this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4Cnm0tdkJEU#!

dammit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cnm0tdkJEU

You could also go back to R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" video, where they incorporated a mandolin and dressed up in pseudo-Amish costumes for another example of the same vibe... Gillian Welch is a good example of a 90s artist who put forth the same sort of Dust Bowl image as the Lumineers (although she was a much better songwriter, in my opinion)
--Driver 8

straight trollin'

it's funny that there have now been 6 different posters using the phrase "old timey" itt but nobody has traced this trend back to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack at all yet.

yeah, I was gonna say. these dudes were like 18 when that movie came out. formative experience obviously.

blimey @ the article linked in the OP

Yeah, 'codswallop' is too kind a word, really.

"Hey, Soul Sister" kinda feels like the unofficial beginning of this trend, that was really the only 'acoustic' song on pop radio besides Taylor Swift for a while before the Lumineers/Phillip Phillips/Ed Sheeran onslaught

Eh, I dunno. There was always all that Jack Johnson hammock rock before "Hey Soul Sister."

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, February 13, 2013 7:20 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well i was talking about like top 40 radio -- Jack Johnson never had a "Hey Soul Sister" or "Ho Hey"-level pop hit, and when he did peaked it was around the James Blunt era of acoustic hits, before the lull and recent influx of acoustic stuff.

One of the guys, Espen, who's like a huge star in Norway, picked up a ukulele, and said, 'Hey, how about this?' I said, 'Are you (kidding) me?' And it made the difference. It made my words dance. It made sense. These words were meant to dance with ukulele and not guitar.

Where do Of Monsters & Men fit in this mess?

right in the middle of the current trend, "Little Talks" broke through pretty well to pop radio, if not as much as the Lumineers

really wish the Shins hadn't changed anybody's lives

Do any of these bands even acknowledge the No Depression movement?

No Depression bands were rarely so into artifice. Remember, what made them "alt" country in the first place was really just them turning their back on costumes and polish.

At least with historical hobbyists like Civil War re-enactors and the Society for Creative Anachronism, there's an sincere intensity to their goofiness. I mean, who am I to argue against a 20 year old having a HFS moment with a Woody Guthrie record and wanting to tell you about it. What bothers me about the Lumineers and their ilk is the amount of empty calories they spew out. I'm convinced they were grown in vats or bodysnatched by interstellar seed pods.

Someone (may have been another comedian) described Dane Cook's act as ninety minutes of shouting "YEAHHHH! THAT'S RIGHT!" repeatedly. Get the same feeling here.

but with long dresses and suspenders and ukeleles

My first exposure to this band was when Paul Krugman posted live videos on his blog.

That was a sentence I didn't need to read.

NIGHTMARES FOR DAYS.

my sister informed me tonight that her dog has a heavy response to "ho hey" ... so there's that.

Hey!

Ho!

Hey !

Ho !!

here's the dog
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/301871_10200255556452079_37240055_n.jpg

No matter what the response, I love that dog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuDNSp3spDE

These bands are fun to rank on for dressing like a community theatre presentation of the "Grapes of Wrath" or something, but I guess the legions of retro Sabbath/Pentagram worshippers dressed in bellbottoms and fringes (which I'm a total sucker for)are no better? Much as I wanna cram a fedora down someone's craw, I can't in good conscience deny that this kinda thing is ridiculoushttp://images.popmatters.com/music_cover_art/w/witchcraft.jpg
Except that I dig the tunes & aesthetic of Witchcraft and recoil form the Lumfords' diff brand of self-serious depression RPG.

Are there dudes who walk around with bellbottoms and fringe jacket? Because I get the weird feeling these Lumineers hit the stage in their street clothes/mustaches.

Witchcraft are from Sweden. American Sabbath/Pentagram worshippers dress like 21st century warehouse workers.

Johnny Marr doesn't specify, but:

I also find this kind of folk with guys in Wellington boots and washboards not good to listen to. That music is one step away from barn dancing as far as I'm concerned. Anyone under the age of 60 should not be wearing Wellington boots on stage.

i think we have a new genre name

Wellingtons and Washboards

I should mention that my yoga class uses the Lumineers music every week so I more strongly identify their music with pain and suffering than I even normally would.

barn dancing is great

Lululemon Rock.

God help me, I was at an arena last weekend where "Ho Hey" came on over the PA and -- before the knee-jerk revulsion set in -- it struck me that it sounded just a little like an outtake from Tusk. And now it's hard for me to hate it as much.

sb your ears

Maybe if buckingham weren't insane. The "yeah"s in That's Enough For Me are so much better than any "ho" or "hey" in that song. But really, I don't hear it.

Yeah, it's like a very blanded-out Buckingham, with nothing to say. Mostly it's the way the space in the production works with the hook in the chorus. Just enough for me to understand why it was a hit.

http://rusticauthentics.tumblr.com/

Inspired by the work of Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers and Bon Iver, we're an artisan hand-crafted clothing line dedicated to matching your passion for the lifestyle. Real clothing for real people who love real music. It doesn't get any realer than that.

Easily rollable sleeves prove an asset for impromptu banjo and mandolin jam sessions, while buttoned bottoms can connect with your pants and stay eternally tucked.

ultimate menswear line for the New Authentic movement.

is it a joke or just horrifyingly indistinguishable from what the joke version of it would be?

pretty sure it's for real, unfortunately.

is it a joke or just horrifyingly indistinguishable from what the joke version of it would be?

This. Was not aware that it had become a full-on "movement".

so for real

refuse to live in any world where this is not a pisstake

The more I parse this, the more jokey it seems. That being the case, good one! Because I was blind with rage originally.

sweet.

V smart parody.

"Whether you’re rocking Bonnaroo or working in a barn, don’t be caught without your Rustic Authentics."

Functional and fashionable, these wardrobe staples will get you through many a “Ho Hey” ho-down or riverside writing session.

oh boy

Coming around to the "it's a joke" stance, much to my relief

i just wish that tumblr left bon iver out of all of this.

he's definitely part of the problem tho

Yeah I'm quite happy to let guilt by association affect mob psychology here.

Keep the modern devices tucked away, and accessorize without sacrificing any of what makes you you.

killin it

re: bon iver i always find this comforting

http://boniverotica.tumblr.com/

"new authentic" heh

the "everyboot" is genius

a part of me feels compelled to defend these rustic authentic bros, using the same argument i would always use to defend hipsters: aren't they ultimately harmless? and couldn't our society stand to be a little more, not less, tolerant of whimsy and self-expression, even if it means standing up for a lame, embarrassing, kitschy aesthetic once in a while?

you have to take what i say with a "pinch of salt" though, yesterday i was defending the poetry of suzanne sommers on another messageboard.

it's cynically deployed. blame the system in part but the overwhelming presence of lumineers imagine dragons etc in ad campaigns shows how 'authenticity' can be just another pose in our lovely hypercapitalist world

plus the songs are fucking terrible, not just musically obvious but lyrically bankrupt. have you listened to the lyrics of 'it's time'? it's a monologue that's barely worthy of a dorm-room bro trying to explain to some girl why he needs to see the world before he settles down with a girlfriend

harmless rustic authentic bros. would be okay but ne'er have i come across one who didn't also have rustic authentic ideas about gender roles bubbling away somewhere.

the new goo goo dolls single sounds like these guys. dashboard confessional bro started a new band just to sound like these guys.

it is a depressing trend

yeah i'm not a fan of the trend at all. it feels like a degraded form of like, neutral milk hotel, and all the '00s bands that used archaic instrumentation -- beirut, etc.

I blame the Arcade Fire. I am ALWAYS happy to blame the fucking Arcade Fire.

that's funny. i have also always been deeply prejudiced against the arcade fire. something about their theatricality seems to straddle the line between authenticity and camp in a way that feels disingenuous.

i'm not even of the opinion that arcade fire are the *worst* band in the world, i just don't really like their thing -- but they have been a terrible influence on music in the past 9 years.

yeah i agree with that. i think they are (really) good at what they do, but something about their schtick is unappealing to me. i feel like i am more opposed to their most recent album, with its operatic, pseudo-political title, than their first album, which i think i probably liked when i was in hs

Dude's taking the gag straight to the people: http://forum.mumfordandsons.com/t/12831.aspx

Interesting that the lineage is indie rather than what we in the olde days called alt-country. Like, I don't get the sense that there's much overlap between Son Volt fans (who apparently still exist, as does the band) and the Lumineers/Mumford scene.

Cosign on Arcade Fire being one of the root causes of this. I read tons of glowing press without ever hearing their records, and then stumbled across them one night on Austin City Limits thinking, "What the HELL is this" until their name finally flashed on screen.

this stuff feels like roots music stripped of any roots -- like it signifies back to basics but doesn't even know what the "basics" are.

Agreed. Lumineeros (what are we calling these people?) are also way more twee imo.

i was agreeing to son volt overlap -- stupid xp

I think I have heard about 15 seconds of "Ho Hey" in total, because every time I encounter it I either change the radio station or exit the room where it is playing

I heard it on the radio last night followed immediately on the same station by Enrique Iglesias ft Pitbull, "I Like It"
Lol radio programming in 2013

yeah they play it between bruno mars and justin bieber out here. which is kind of interesting but mostly lol.

this is a larger question, but do you think this is a particularly bad year for top 40 radio?

YES

do you have any suspicions as to why it is so bad? i would say that music taste has become so balkanized by the internet that the radio has become exclusively the domain of un-savvy music listeners, people in high school, who don't even have an ear for good pop music. but then, why is that coming to the fore now, and not five or six years ago, or something?

I always feel like the cranky old man when i say this but I believe there are a few main culprits for the decline of decent top 40 radio:

1) Decline of music education in public schools (and probable decline in private or individual music ed too)
2) The old record label system, for all its flaws, does not have an adequate replacement in terms of something that can support an artist financially for a while while developing a record (i.e. a large advance)
3) More advanced data usage on pop music has led to the pursuit of surer hits, less risk-taking

may also be that talent is going elsewhere, big labels aren't sexy anymore, etc.

it's because of the way we consume music & the way businesses track the consumption of music

there are almost definitely 10-year-old kids listening to Lumineers mp3s who weren't even born when "New Slang" changed everyone's lives

also maybe since the decline of the album format, big labels don't want to throw their weight behind more ambitious/interesting artists, and just sort of cynically sign artists that can reproduce a predictable, proven formula, like young money style rap or bieber bubblegum or mumford-type alt country pop or whatever.

I am kind of ambivalent abt music education in American public schools; in my experience a large part of it seems to be Huey Lewis fans teaching kids to play corny regimented jazz fusion

In my experience (which was the mid-'80s), it was a Lionel Richie fan telling all of us kids to listen to real music and not that Prince crap which nobody would ever remember in 10 years. (Our marching band's version of "All Night Long" was kinda cool, to be fair.)

We did actually play Huey Lewis, too -- "Heart of Rock n Roll" was a show-stopper for the high school jazz band.

in my experience, it was someone teaching us what different instruments sounded like mixed in with learning to read music and learning to sightread

And how to tell the difference between 12 different Sousa marches.

i was in my high school jazz band as well and we mostly played adaptations of jazz standards, like salt peanuts or a night in tunisia or even like herbie hancock songs. it was sweet.

I am kind of ambivalent abt music education in American public schools; in my experience a large part of it seems to be Huey Lewis fans teaching kids to play corny regimented jazz fusion

― Heyman (crüt), Friday, April 12, 2013 12:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah but you need some vehicle or other for teaching kids to play/write passing chords and melodies that span more than three notes

i feel like knowing how to read or play music is not a precondition of having good taste though, and taste is something that is driven at the producer end. the reason top 40 radio is bad is not because there aren't good musicians out there.

shit, i meant "consumer" end.

i had to do a dance routine to "great balls of fire" for flag team in high school
i remember being conflicted because it was totally uncool but also super fun

most of my music education experiences were overwhelmingly positive. i feel like i have lots of amusing/happy memories of performances and whatnot. i did wind up getting kicked off the flag team though.

the reason top 40 radio is bad is not because there aren't good musicians out there.

There are plenty of good or potentially good people on the top 40, even. We just seem to be in one of those ruts where there's a crop of drab newbies sharing space with people who have made plenty of good music but are in various stages of water-treading or underperforming. You could have a top 40 with Justin Timberlake, Pink, Rihanna and Britney in it that was a lot better than the one we have.

(Of the established pros on the chart right now, only Taylor is at the top of her game.)

and she is pretty much uniformly terrible, ergo

None of which excuses the Lumineers and those who sail with them, obviously.

cosign on taylor swift being terrible. unless she is reading it; then i'd feel bad.

i'm not smart enough to hate this stuff on any critical level but as an old i can't hear any antecedents past arcade fire or nmh or what have you either and therefore it doesn't line up with my consumer experience of americana. i like a nice twang where is the twang. also some jangle. where are the second-hand shout-outs to mcguinn, parsons, or dick dale.

i think bluster is an accurate shorthand descriptor of the new authentic aesthetic; i tend to like ruckus music, tho. i don't hear any ruckus in new authentic.

it's like cowpunk never happened.

I absolutely loathe everything about this band.

...like Rusted Root in fucking trilby hats. Deplorable.

I will never bemoan yr absenteeism Alex as long as you show up every now and then in this ^^^ fashion

(but I do kinda miss ya)

it's like Bright Eyes happened.

xposts

i don't think this is a particularly bad yr for pop radio. the songs poll about top 10 hits so far this yr aren't even that bad

which top 10 songs this year do you like?

(be warned that if you say "Thrift Shop" a good 80% of ILM will uppercut you)

i voted for "thrift shop" as the worst on the list.

i don't know, i am not enthusiastic about any of the songs on that list but most of them don't have me reaching for the dial either. it's the sort of average that comprises 80+% of all chr programming basically every year.

Interesting that the lineage is indie rather than what we in the olde days called alt-country. Like, I don't get the sense that there's much overlap between Son Volt fans (who apparently still exist, as does the band) and the Lumineers/Mumford scene.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Friday, April 12, 2013 11:43 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this stuff feels like roots music stripped of any roots -- like it signifies back to basics but doesn't even know what the "basics" are.

― tylerw, Friday, April 12, 2013 11:45 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it's pointing back at something but there's no through-line to follow all the way back to the origin. can't get there from here. i don't necessarily expect millenials to honor the postmodern-rocker mullet bolo-tie black-vest black-converse hightops rodeo that was specific to the 80's version of how the past was re-interpreted, but you could track who they were aping who was aping someone else who was aping whoever preceded them and so on. turtles upon turtles until you got to the ur-turtle.

this stack of turtles runs like three deep at most.

FWIW, before he produced Mumford & Sons, before he produced Coldplay, well before he produced Arcade Fire, Markus Dravs produced the Levellers.

i'm sure the problem is mine where i just can't see the turtles underneath but for example, if i go to the allmusic entry for the dream syndicate and go to the "related" section there are entries for the "similar," "influences," and "followers" categories. if i do the same for the lumineers or of monsters and men there's only the "similar" section and nothing else.

i guess i'm just angry at hats. this is probably a good example of the fallacy of sartorial intent thing that ppl are always on about. i assumed that when peter case picked up the trilby at the vintage shop and checked himself out in the mirror and thought "so i think this is the best costume for the day" he knew he was playing dress-up but he also knew who wore it before him because the previous owner wrote his name in the lining. from the lumineers i just get a "sick hat, bro" vibe and not much else?

like e.g., lone justice or social distortion could countenance the idea of a continuous lineage with covers of "fortunate son" or "ring of fire" and sound okay but at the same time "i found love" sounds a lot like "footloose" to me too so they're backward-looking and contemporary at the same time. new authentics just sound like passion pit or atlas genius w/ added banjo. mostly it's the boom boom boom salvation-army marching band kick drum thing and all the oooh ooohs. i dunno what covers these bands could do that would slot them in anywhere in time other than where there are right now and that's fine. but i'm used to hearing or at least have someone smarter point out all the vertical and horizontal connections and this seems all horizontal except the hats are telling me something different.

yeah, my basic stance wrt mumford etc has been that they're so appalling because they present a form of traditional rustic authenticity that's detached from any kind of actual tradition, so it floats around being uncanny if you let it or just awful if you don't, but it does make me wonder - where are they coming from? we can't blame arcade fire for everything, there are obvs signifiers at work here that try to extend much further than mid-2000s indie, but to where?

I wonder where the O Brother sdtk fits in this. A bunch of these folks heard their parents or older sibs copies and where like "Banjos! That's where it's at!"?

O Brother. Walk The Line. M. Ward. Neko Case. Damien Rice. The Old Crow Medicine Show. Jeff Buckley. Conor Oberst. Bob Dylan & Woody Guthrie minus the poetry and prolificacy. Nick Drake minus the virtuosic right hand. A bunch of pastoral-tinged sub-alternative-rock gibberish with very little respect for the folk song tradition it pretends to revere.

Come come come nuclear bomb

Every Band Is Like Son Volt

mm crut that list seems plausible, but all those ppl seem to have too much of a grasp on the actual tradition for the mumford leap into nothingness to really make sense. but then also mumfords are british and we have some kind of tradition of destroying our folk lineage while also honoring it, maybe they actually know the good stuff and went for the former but forgot the latter a little.

really at the end of history

it's sad, it was a history

well yeah - they have a grasp on tradition, but their followers don't necessarily. The same way a Rolling Stones fan might have heard of, say, Howlin' Wolf but not really know his music.

and I'm not saying everyone who makes music has to acknowledge their place in musical tradition, but these guys are obviously trying to cultivate an old-timey folk band image

these guys are obviously trying to cultivate an old-timey folk band image

But without any sense of the actual music that goes with it. Maybe it's not so much the soundtrack to "O Brother" as the movie itself, some vague idea that it would be fun to wear suspenders and fedoras.

And I'm not bemoaning any lack of authenticity, just trying to pinpoint the musical antecedents, which I think are separate from the sartorial ones.

the music is wearing banjos in the same way the ppl are physically wearing hats, is what i think is going on here.

i don't think authenticity is key either because revivals/ retrograde movements tend to bastardize or tinker with what they take from the past to suit their current needs and it becomes its own thing, but what they steal and corrupt is usually pretty specific and you can identify the original owner. i don't know anyone's stealing from here if they are at all; it's too generalized.

don't know what anyone's stealing

it's like Bright Eyes happened.

Haven't heard lumineers but the Bright Eyes guy has a lot to answer for in terms of inspiring so many shitty vocalists. I wouldn't mind arcade fire or all the car commercial indie as much if the vocals weren't all that awful bright eyes style warbly bleating. Like nails on a chalkboard.

The main issue with this stuff is how cowardly it is. It's the lesson learned from Coldplay above all else: why be small when you can go big? Why be subtle when you risk someone missing the point? Why go low-key when you can aim for the arena rafters?

Also, folk authenticity makes less money than arena-ready "whoa-oh-oh!"-alongs (see again: Coldplay, who for a minute there were on the cusp of doing something interesting but decided they'd rather be rich and famous, ie they're doing it for the people, man, not for critics). The suspenders and hats and banjos are pretty much all they have in common with "the past." The rest is straight up contemporary hokum.

man i wish they were authentically authentic instead of fakely authentic

i think you're making a joke dyl but i think "fakely authentic" is a pretty shitty pose. better to authentically "own" your inauthenticity. i feel like the stones were the best at this... juxtaposing their trad-sounding blues rock with androgynous outfits and borderline offensive fake accents; it was all so outrageous it worked, and in the 60s it felt like the coolest thing in the world. the lumineers are too tasteful to be interesting; they seem like they are trying to get away with something.

on the other hand, authentically authentic, unlike the stones' authentically fake, can be cool too. i have a friend who is like, a real student of american folk music and who performs mid-19th century folk songs on his banjo. he's a good performer and i respect what he does a great deal. so authentically authentic is good and, in my view, authentically fake is good too. the one thing you don't want to be is fakely authentic.

Do you think these guys have a trunk full of hats and suspenders they take on tour with them?

i think so. pretty sure the mumfords only own one outfit each though.

I hear they only have one outfit, sleep in that outfit, and also clean the barn in that outfit, to keep it authentic. Like Method actors.

A trunk full of heys and a suitcase full of hos

Tom Waits on The Eagles: "Those guys grew up in L.A. and they don't have cow-shit on their boots - they just got dog shit from Laurel Canyon."

what kind of shit does tom waits have

Tom's silence on the lumineers' shit more or less damning?

i remember hearing an anecdote about mark e smith throwing bottles at mumford and sons. i think i sided with the mumfords on that one.

Neil Young loves these guys, right? " don't want my MPC..."

what kind of shit does tom waits have

yeah, kind of hilarious, given the authenticity of tom's drunken carny schtick

like, The Eagles are all about being a slick west coast band, they're not fake country singers.

does anyone really care whether or not mumford & sons are as authentically steeped in olde-tyme goodness as their outfits suggest? it's like bitching about daft punk (topical) being fake robots.

i was devastated when i first learned that daft punk weren't actual robots.

i think the lumineers' (and the mumfords') specific brand of inauthenticity is specifically inauthentic, or theme-parkey. they don't constellate their attraction to old timey aesthetics with anything that feels relevant to the 21st century, and so just come across as a banal nostalgic act, like they should be playing at tom sawyer island in disney world.

instead of specifically i should have said "especially". i explain this position more eloquently upthread. i don't know whether anyone else agrees with me on this though.

disney is a good reference point for these bands

"authenticity" is about how well you sell it, not what you are

i disagree. i think it has to do with the way they approach their material, like they're playing dress up. i think you can engage with americana/rootsy sources in a more meaningful way. what the lumineers are attracted to in the 19th century feels superficial, and doesn't have much to do with the period as such. that's why they are inauthentic, in my view.

playing dress up is way fun

plus i heard mumford has advanced syphilitic dementia, so

(xpost again to hurting) terms like "authentic" are vague though and everyone has their own definition for them. i guess what i am actually describing is just why i don't like them and their schtick.

advanced syphillitic dementia seems pretty authentic

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/CountryBearJamboreeBears.JPG/800px-CountryBearJamboreeBears.JPG

real talk

I'd put forth Gillian Welch as an example of someone doing inauthentic authentic about as well as it can be done. There's a real depth to her songs in line with what she's borrowing/stealing from, and the way she dresses and presents herself seems more a facet of her personality than just playing dress up. It may be an affectation, but she lives it. The Mumford guys, these Lumineers ... it's not stylized so much as just plain styled.

yeah I kind of wish I didn't even drop the A-word. There are all kinds of different ways an artist can successfully engage an unlived past, from deadpan serious to full-on campy. Lumineers just have this dumbed-down vague old-timeyness to them that seems kind of pointless other than signifying warm fuzzyness

yeah, exactly

they remind me of a phenomenon I noticed a lot with indie bands maybe 5-10 years ago that I used to call We Have A Banjo. Because we were kind of alt countryish we would always get booked with indie bands obviously influenced by the O Brother soundtrack or at least the general zeitgeist of getting into rootsy, old-timey music, and the way they would often manifest this was by having a guy or girl who played banjo. This person would NEVER play the banjo well, and would ALWAYS play it like a guitar. I mean I probably saw 15 of these bands and none of them had banjo players who actually knew the slightest thing about how to play banjo. And they'd often play these slow, rink-a-dink-a-dink kind of patterns.

i figure you either want to raise your voice along with the foot stomping banjo stroking joysomeness hoedown or you don't. and if you don't, it's all gonna sound pretty bogus to you one way or the other.

i mean, i like a thousand half-written songs by bands who don't play or sing at all well, who are basically just a watered-down version of something else. second-rate secondhand garage rock appeals cuz i'm a fan, an enthusiast. this crap doesn't do it for me because i like my music a bit more self-consciously weird and alienated. i don't care about their folk authenticity any more than i care whether or not corpsepaint bands sincerely worship satan.

like i'd probably say this insufferable disney shit could eat a cookie even if their clawhammer technique was on point

lol

(hey!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3fAzQzgeSc

^ best pillow

Meanwhile, back at the farm
http://www.encorepub.com/welcome/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/810music-bella.jpg

the guy in the back with the (banjo-looking) stand-up bass and the wizard robe seems authentic. everyone else in that band is a poseur.

dat's one of those fancy guitars all metal guitars right?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/88/Lee_Ritenour_-_Earth_Run.jpg

looks like a pinball machine.... cool?

didn't know Daryl Hall played concertina in the lumineers

A co-worker must have heard the constant onslaught of acoustic beardy guy music I'm always listening to at work (stuff like CS+N, Neil, Fairports, Wilco, John Martyn, Fleet Foxes, etc. — because it doesn't offend anyone and I never mind hearing that stuff) and assumed I was into these guys on principle.

Her: (excited voice) "Do you like the Lumineers?"
Me: (fake smile) "Never really listened to them. . ."

Politely didn't add, "Because once was enough!"

I felt nauseous for about ninety minutes afterwords.

Yeah, this band sucks.

fleet foxes? same stuff isn't it?

does anyone really care whether or not mumford & sons are as authentically steeped in olde-tyme goodness as their outfits suggest?

basically how i feel. re: my comment above above "authentically authentic" vs. "fakely authentic", yes, i was kidding, but at the same time... my thoughts on authenticity and its signifiers are evidently not nearly as complex as some people's. i generally couldn't care less how faithfully an artist conveys the musical tradition, if there is any, that people perceive them as belonging to. if i dislike a band like mumford & sons, it's because i think their music is crap, not because i feel offended and lied to.

for the record i think "ho hey" is a decent enough song despite its simplistic sing-songy chorus and the title gimmick, so maybe this negates all my thoughts on the subject

also i liked about half of the first fleet foxes album and find it funny that people actually make fun of others for liking fleet foxes

hm. i don't think it's about feeling "lied to," for me, as much as it is feeling like i don't wan to connect to a band that presents itself in such "bad faith" (to borrow a term from sartre.) this isn't even so much about the authenticity/conceit question -- re. the stones blatant appropriation not being necessarily "inauthentic" -- as much as it is about wanting artists to have a measure of transparency, both to themselves and to their fans, about who they are and what they do and why.

fuck that. i don't want artists to be transparent. i want them to be good.

by transparent i don't mean honest in interviews or something. i don't know. i want them to be people doing stuff they want to do, or feel compelled to do... expressing something or taking music somewhere... no people creating a bland entertainment product. the lumineers are the musical equivalent of a thomas kinkade painting; no matter how "good" it might be, there is something sickening about it all the same.

yes, you detect the presence of evil, and psychic spines extend from the surface of your astral shell into the offending region. i think we're on the same page.

what does "good" and "bad" even mean except "i like it" or "i don't like it"? and then, once you decide whether you like something, isn't the next step to decide why -- what it is that you like? i don't think there is such a thing as "objective" goodness, and i also don't think there is such a thing as a "pure" experience of music... everything is mediated through our own prejudices, preferences, preconceptions, etc. if a band is presenting a prefabricated disneyfied rustic country experience that is like, blatantly hokey and theatrical... that is just going to be offputting to me.

this feels like looper

sweet. i liked looper. i saw it at nitehawk cinema in brooklyn and got really, really drunk.

fleet foxes? same stuff isn't it?

Here's two responses. Pick whichever you like.

<slightly intoxicated Austin>
**rolls up sleeves** Motherfucker, have you even listened to them?
</slightly intoxicated Austin>

<having to go to work in the morning Austin>
Hardly.
</having to go to work in the morning Austin>

Yes, I threw them into that list intentionally.

Just to offend your sensibilities further, I almost included Andrew Bird.

sweet.

um but yeah, i guess the problem for me isn't so much the hokeyness (i mean, i like queen & adam and the ants & turbonegro, so hokey clearly isn't the issue), but rather that the music's not really hitting my sweet spots. it used to be easier for me to get worked up about what i saw as WRONG with the art & culture i wasn't feeling, but these days i'm more inclined just to say that it's for someone else.

i am actually pretty interested in this whole conversation even if i don't really get it. how else could an artist be transparent about their inauthenticity other than approaching their performance with some kind of implicit wink or overt campiness?

like they should be playing at tom sawyer island in disney world made me lol

maybe. tbh, i feel like i still haven't fully worked out my feelings on the authenticity/conceit, hokeyness/sincerity question. i mean, i like hokeyness, even camp, too sometimes: no album means more to me than 69 love songs. however, i still suspect there is an answer to this dilemma, and i think it has something to do with self-awareness rather than just "musical quality", which is too hazy a concept for me to be comfortable with i think.

sorry my last post was to contenderizer. thanks for the lol dyl, i was happy with that comment too. i think, yeah, overt campiness is more authentic, in some ways, then like... what the lumineers do, which affects sincerity, and like wants you to clap along and *feel* something.

[cont'd] i guess that's what bugs me (slightly) about the inauthenticity criticisms, or the lack of transparency or w/e. afaic, this is some shitty happytimes sadpop for other people, people i barely understand. they probably get something real out of it, but how the fuck would i know? and relative to that transaction, the lumineers are probably coming from a rilly real place. maybe. it's weird shit. like candle shops at the mall. wtf. how is that even part of anyone's life? but it is, and there you go.

maybe it sounds like i'm advocating apathy in the face of evil, but i'd rather say that the hatred evil inspires need not excuse itself rationally. it only need kill without cessation or remorse.

lol. maybe i'm just not secure enough in my taste to not try to provide some sort of critical explanation for all of my preferences. although something about the mumfords/lumineers feels sinister in a "political" way, almost, like thomas kinkade paintings... something about the usurpation of real aesthetic experience with a smiling facsimile. i think i am going to read "avant garde and kitsch" again tomorrow and see if i can get some ideas from that, although that essay doesn't give an account of postmodernism and is obv. very dated...

I get what both of you a re talking about.

And I know that adds nothing to all of this.

But the Lumineers are very clearly poseurs.

I got the same sort of vibe from Ray Lamontagne (sp?), the Killers and Kings of Leon (and, to a lesser, though more controversial extent, White Stripes) the first time I respectively heard all of them.

ooh i disagree strongly with the white stripes inclusion. it's a difficult question though; you can never precisely say *what* it is about an artist that makes them awful when there are tons of artists you love that could theoretically be subject to the same kind of criticism.

almost, like thomas kinkade paintings... something about the usurpation of real aesthetic experience with a smiling facsimile

i feel you, but have lately been attracted to a somewhat freudian accounting of this sort of taste. the problem with thomas kinkade and mssrs mumfords is not that they are false, smiling facsimiles, but that they are insufficiently dissatisfied. i am dissatisfied. i chafe against the world and myself, constantly test things and people for the adequacy, constantly find them lacking. i'm rankled. i'm critical, oppositional, a bad robot. (that sounds self-aggrandizing, but it's a mixed bag at best.)

anyway, this puts me at odds with art and culture that arises from a more satisfied, well-adjusted place. i'm trying to avoid words like "complacent" here, cuz my point is that taste is more about identification than evaluation. we tend to stick with our kind. and it's not really that there's anything wrong with other kinds, just that they're, well, other. i mean, i like the fucking fall. and wolf eyes. i've chosen sides.

as a consequence, i have a hard time with the lumineers just as i have a hard time with most pop country, with the dave matthews band, and with pomplamoose. it's not that they make "bad music", i phrase i can hardly relate to. the problem is that shit seems to arise from and slip most happily into brains very different than mine. which is cool. so long as they don't cross this line...

ooh i disagree strongly with the white stripes inclusion

**shrug**

I know.

Many people seem to think my favorite band (previously mentioned Foxes) are as bad as anything else currently going in this shit, half-hearted "folk rock revival" (if I may call it that). But I connect and get something genuine from them.

Not saying this could never ever happen with the Lumineers.

But perhaps I'd like to think of them as a "gateway drug" in the same way that I think of Owl City as a "gateway drug" to bigger (and presumably better) things.

xpost thanks for that post contenderizer. i hear what you're saying, and it's cool that you've arrived at such a tolerant, relativistic place. i guess what i would add to that is that it is important to keep in mind that oppositional art, the avant garde, has a richer history in the past 130 or so years than does, like, affirmative, conflict-free art, that ultimately exists to reaffirm power systems. maybe we won't change the world by consuming art that insists on facing the inadequacy of life in our society... which includes more than just grim punk music or w/e in my view, any self-reflexive art counts to an extent... but we will keep alive a flame of possibility, a sense that is society *isn't good enough*. that is like, kind of a marxist account of this question, and not all modernists were leftists, but i think there is something subversive about refusing, not necessarily "escapist entertainment" (I defended the new Justin Timberlake album on a different thread, lol) but escaping *into* entertainment. What's bad about the Lumineers, ultimately I think, is that they present you with a dream world, and to accept their happy, nostalgic, vaguely spiritualized version of the past would mean to forsake a vigilance I just am not willing to give up.

sorry if that was like, super ott. i think this thread has gone in an interesting direction.

but yeah, reading over that, what i said seems kind of aggrandized. but i think my resistance -- and from what you described, it seems similar -- to the kind of inauthenticity present in things like dave matthews and mumfords is that theirs is a vision without real conflict and antagonisms. and whatever your politics, there is something kind of unnerving about that.

tbh, i feel like i got to into college critical theory mode with that post above. i still stand by what i said but watered down about 30x. there's nothing "truly sinister" about the lumineers, their schtick is just based on an inauthentic, romanticized vision of the world that is unappealing to me, and seems incompatible with a critical viewpoint on society. however, about 6,000,000x artists i like could probably be exposed to the same sorts of criticisms.

wow this thread really took a turn huh

"dream world" is an interesting choice in this context. i say that because one of the most appealing things about film is its ability to construct dreams. i often describe films as shared dreams (a received idea), and like best those that create dreams i wish to inhabit. these aren't necessarily the most pleasant or welcoming oneiric spaces, but rather those that seem richest and most seductive. and i like a lot of music that i find simply beautiful, even if its beauty is more reassuring than challenging. to listen to john fahey or arvo part is to submit to a dream, and the pleasure such music provides isn't tied to punk's oppositional exhilaration. it's hard for me to say why i find arvo part's reliance on simple loveliness less off-putting than thomas kinkade's. they both seem to express a longing for an unattainable spiritual embrace. in kinkade's case, this is represented in an idealized vision of "home", where the object of part's yearning is harder to pin down. maybe that ambiguity is what draws me in. i think i tend to prefer art that questions more than it answers.

anyway, there's an interesting conversation currently going on on ILM where kinkade's paintings are compared with the recent films of terrence malick. it might be said that both present spiritual yearning in similarly vague and prettified terms, but malick's work refuses kinkade's easy answers. you instantly know what's being offered when you glance at kinkade. there's no mystery. the dream is very shallow. malick, meanwhile, insists on a language that is his alone, and that is, despite its superficial loveliness, very much at odds with the conventions of american narrative cinema. the dream he creates refuses to reassure us in the simplest possible manner. we have to work ourselves into some accommodation with them.

fahey, meanwhile, provides an interesting comparison point to mumford et al. he conjured a "old-timeyness" to combat what he saw as the loss of meaning in the world, and i suppose that's what the vest brigade do too. fahey's knowledge of the tradition he responded to is unassailable, but i don't think that's what i respond to in his music. the virtuosity and beauty are part of it, but i imagine i detect a sort of restlessness, a dissatisfaction. fahey's ideas travel in circles, looping in and around themselves, and while the lines stay clear, there's the sense of a knot that's never quite untangled. i dunno. i'm overstating it, i do that. his music may be easy to enjoy, but it never kisses your ass. it never mugs and prances and begs for your affection. it makes the offering and that's that. i respect the approach. it suits me.

that was a response to:

What's bad about the Lumineers, ultimately I think, is that they present you with a dream world

however, about 6,000,000x artists i like could probably be exposed to the same sorts of criticisms.

bottom line, that's the real problem with critical line-drawing. i find that everything i fault in the music i hate i embrace in the music i love. tbh, i suspect that emotion precedes rationalization wherever i have really strong feelings.

i think the key thing here might be, as you said, the issue of asking questions vs. providing answers. the former opens us to an awareness new, undreamed of possibilities -- points, however vaguely, to the future -- while the latter is a dead end. i think beautiful artworks, like malick films, even beethoven symphonies, have more in common with "oppositional art" than they do with thomas kinkade paintings, because both oppositional avant garde works and well-executed, lyrical works are aware, yet dissatisfied with, their own limits, and so are involved in the contemplation of possibility. for kinkade to locate utopia in the suburban home is just too easy, and it's depressing because it settles for an easy, false answer. the other side of this complacency, i feel, is a kind of fatalism, a refusal to imagine things otherwise. it's for this reason, i think, that his works don't really "live"; they're just pastorals closed unto themselves, and a world in which that is "the beautiful" is a world that has nothing left to show us, and there is something very depressing in that.

i think music like the lumineers is similar to kinkade paintings in that it is committed to a vision of the past, of (i guess) 19th century rural american life, that is closed and comfortable. it has nothing to do with the actual past, but it has everything to do with this idea that beauty is something we already understand. the lumineers don't mine their sources to discover new depths, they don't reconfigure anything in the tradition to make us look at it anew, they just take from it what they know will be immediately appealing. and there is just something bleak about this complacency. i don't think that every artist should be experimental -- should try to reinvent the wheel everytime, or be endlessly critical and oppositional -- but i do think that they should aspire to *do* something, to make us stop and think about what, exactly, is going on. idk. these are hastily sketched thoughts about big questions.

and yeah, cosign on the emotion preceding rationalization thing. it's taken me a long time to accept that's how i operate, and i'm still not fully comfortable with it, but it's undeniable. i still think it's good to examine my preferences anyway, and try to understand why i feel the way i do, even if this is doomed to always be, at least in part, a mythology constructed after the fact.

i find that everything i fault in the music i hate i embrace in the music i love.

see kogan's boney joan rule

I don't listen to Fleet Foxes, but at the least the band can sing. Mumford et al. mostly yelp and stuff.

people that YELP are scumbags

There's a lot more going on musically in Fleet Foxes songs than in Lumineers, so at least I'd get less bored listening to them

yeah i don't see things like fleet foxes and things like the lumineers as the same thing, really.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MJ9ZgogB5so/TklaQXzbkHI/AAAAAAAAFUo/rxkAbPy_44s/s1600/thing+1+thing+2.jpg

lol.

Authentic beardos in a flock. Fuck 'em.

You guys are really (predictably) overthinking this band. My kid likes them. He also likes Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and a bunch of other bands I think are kind of in the same realm. But his favorite act right now is Phantogram. And Julia Holter. And he listens to a ton of Miles Davis. Lumineers aren't any sort of cultural zeitgeist to him, they're just one band among many he likes (and he's not sporting any of the wardrobe.) I just find them super easy to ignore.

it would be sweet if he started sporting miles davis's wardrobe.

i think you're probably right - the lumineers aren't an "important" phenomenon, really -- but i've always been an "overthinker", i don't know, discussing art and culture is how i work through how i feel about things in general.

edward sharp and the magnetic zeros are more annoying to me than any of these other bands, actually, because people would play "home" all the time when i was in college. i also went to college in gettysburg, pennsylvania so there was no shortage of 19th century kitsch.

You can't overthink Lumineers. Isn't that the problem?

Their feet:

http://sparklingflakes.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/the-lumineers-1024x682.jpg

they actually offer so little to think about that it's hard to think about them at all. I see their grinning faces and then I hear the sound of a single drop of water in a vast, echoing emptiness.

jfc assholes, the two guys cuffed their pants in the same exact asymmetrical way, and the chick is doing that cloying little girl thing where she turns her feet in

I like how they have work boots and she's wearing designed shoes.

josh in chicago has been very much otm regarding these insufferable bastards throughout this thread, but I have to say their feet are not as annoying as everything else about them.

i kind of like their workboots that's not a bad look.

I would like this band if they were conjoined triplets.

I could understand someone connecting Fleet Foxes to these guys if they'd only seen a photograph but not if they'd actually heard any of the music, read an interview, thought about it for more than a minute, etc. They're different in every single important way.

even in photos fleet foxes don't look as affected as the lumineers, they're just guys with beards wearing plaid. i feel like many of the people here look like that.

look at this new band, totally copping the lumineers' style
http://25.media.tumblr.com/98e3bc02da83c14c9adb0b8c4a9ba40e/tumblr_mlb03tZecZ1qga7lvo1_500.jpg
oh wait that's modest mouse

They yelp, too, come to think of it.

And look at these poseurs:

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/lk/f/a/82f4eda8602d6579b205dc3137f02cc4/906667.jpg

lol

Point being, you can get away with anything if your music does not suck.

New board description AND rule number one of art

http://www.nationalcivilwarbrassmusic.org/images/FCBBGibsoncropped3.jpg

only a couple of these guys even tried to nail the look, rest are just phoning it in

Phoning it in, or ... euphonium-ing it in?

It's not over until someone sousaphones it in.
Overthinking this shit is a vast empty wasteland; best to ignore it lest you get stuck there.

well my problem is that i see traditional instruments and traditional dress and automatically assume things from the starting point of "tradition," when that might not be the case at all.

]tra·di·tion
[truh-dish-uhn]
noun

1.
the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice: a story that has come down to us by popular tradition.

2.
something that is handed down: the traditions of the Eskimos.

3.
a long-established or inherited way of thinking or acting: The rebellious students wanted to break with tradition.

4.
a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practices.

5.
a customary or characteristic method or manner: The winner took a victory lap in the usual track tradition.

i often can't tell the difference between good authentic, bad authentic, good inauthentic, or bad inauthentic but when i see certain signifiers i think either someone's trying to faithfully reconstruct something or purposefully doing it "wrong" just for aesthetic effect, whichever. i don't think i can judge new authentics on these grounds b/c they're not going for either of these things.

"elvis, was a hero to most but i'm not sure who that is you see"

]tra·di·tion
[truh-dish-uhn]
noun

4.a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practice.

Usage: "There is a long tradition of phony-baloney bands co-opting or enlisting lazy signifiers, trends and fashions as a shortcut to success."

lol

oh well, just another old-time band, with honky affectations

i feel nervous because my boots/pantcuffs combo today does not look dissimilar to that photo of the lumineers.

I don't care a whole lot about authenticity. Whether or not the Lumineers are actual moonshine-swilling ragamuffins with a deep connection to all the old jug bands of yore, they make the same racket. Is the issue that they themselves *think* that they're authentic? Or that they knowingly convey an impression of authenticity to their easily persuaded fans? I dunno, I feel like it's a mistake to read into their intentions or experiences too much; just say you don't dig their sound/style.

my problem with the Lumineers is that the 15 seconds of music I've heard from them was worse than Polyphonic Spree

i feel like the reason i don't like their whole spiel is related to my intuitive sense of what they "represent", something it seems others on this board share, and i guess the authenticity discussion is just a way of unpacking that sentiment. i don't think there is something objectively worse about the simple pop melodies they turn out and the simple pop melodies recorded by some of my favorite groups -- it's all about how this material is presented, how it is framed, which is related to their "sound" but also to other things, like the niche they seem to fill in the culture. i mean, their music is more enjoyable than jandek's, but it irks me, whereas his music fascinates me, and i think it's worth asking why.

i'm also not sure if what i am talking about necessitates looking into their "intentions". the material itself, it seems, lacks self-awareness, in that it presents us with hokey, old-timey, nostalgic pablum, and there is nothing in its presentation to indicate the artists' understanding that it is all a conceit. i don't know: the music doesn't seem to relate to its source material in an interesting way. it's one-dimensional.

an act that is still basically a pop band but which employs "nostalgia" toward more constructive ends, or richer ends, is, i think, beirut. the music feels thoughtful and not lazy, even though it is at the same time pretty on a superficial level.

I'm always shocked when a band so brazenly gloms onto some fashionable sound, like putting on a new suit. I mean, did these guys walk around wearing Olde Tyme stuff with banjos, see Mumford on TV and go, wow, likeminded souls!! Or did they shape their image around some pre-defined trends? I've always wondered this when, say, U2 is being all U2-y, and then the next thing you know, there are a dozen of bands that sound like U2. Or Coldplay. Or Arcade Fire. Just the Zeitgeist? Coincidence? Or simply shameless? Like, if you were the Lumineers, and this was your thing, would you second guess yourself because your thing is the same as so many other things? Like, shit, maybe I should shave my beard and dress differently? Or does arrogance and ego take over and you think, fuck it, I will do this fake folk and work boot shit better than everyone. Or, do you think, even more arrogantly, all these other poseurs can step off, because we are the real deal, look at my suspenders and listen to me yelp? You'd think they'd make even the most modest efforts to differentiate themselves.

eh the mumfords were only popular for a year or two before they put their record out. it seems more likely they were just doing that style for a while and benefited from its popularity than that they scrambled to 'copy' such a broad and established sound/look.

i feel like the visual aesthetics of this sort of thing have been around in the indie world for a while... i mean, look at that modest mouse promo. i think these bands are different because they are just always going for the least common denominator of what appeals to twinkly eyed, romantic-souled indie fans. it's just so depressingly predictable.

in related news, idk if anyone here is a prozac nation fan, but elizabeth wurtzel has outed herself as a fan of mumford and sons. seems like a pretty brave thing to admit to. http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/music/128313/in-bed-with-bob-dylan

fleet foxes at least seems to approach the rustic campfire schtick from their own angle.

idk if anyone here is a prozac nation fan, but elizabeth wurtzel has outed herself as a fan of mumford and sons. seems like a pretty brave thing to admit to. http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/music/128313/in-bed-with-bob-dylan

― Pat Finn, Monday, April 15, 2013 5:53 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

every elizabeth wurtzel blog post lately amounts to "fuck the world, I'm a mess and I'm staying in bed and eating ice cream in my pajamas" so I wouldn't say this is exactly "brave" in her context

i'm also not sure if what i am talking about necessitates looking into their "intentions". the material itself, it seems, lacks self-awareness, in that it presents us with hokey, old-timey, nostalgic pablum, and there is nothing in its presentation to indicate the artists' understanding that it is all a conceit.

Fair point.

xpost lol. for some reason, i still like wurtzel's style. there is something admirable in her unwavering commitment to act like a self-absorbed teenager forever, no matter how horrible it makes her look to the outside world.

yeah what Pat said. It's not like anyone is accusing them of "Not Actually Being From The Turn Of The Century"

That's not partic admirable imo but to each her own.

idk, i feel like it's "authentic" in its own way.

I feel like being "committed" to not growing up isn't really properly defined as "commitment"

oh it totally isn't, and her whole ego seems to be built upon an insane illusion that by sleeping late and doing drugs in her 40s or whatever she is bravely rebelling society's narrow expectations for what she should be doing, and that somehow readers will admire her for that. this worldview is, of course, inauthentic. but the fact that she like, never backs down, and just kind of lives in her own world, not ours... idk, it is authentic. she is authentically pathetic.

I guess so. A lot of people live that way and just don't write about it. I don't know if she's braver for writing about it or just more narcissistic.

hm. i don't know. what i like about her writing is that it gives expression to a worldview that, as you said, seems pretty common in my experience.

also she seems to savvy not to understand that she is coming across as desperate and narcissistic, but for whatever reason spurns those criticisms at every turn. she seems very in control of how she presents herself.

*too

I decided to find out who the Lumineers are influenced by and I got

Drummer Jeremiah Fraites exclusively told BANG Showbiz: ''The first thing I got into was Beethoven. I remember getting one of those CDs that was all piano stuff by Beethoven and that really influenced me a lot, I love classical music.

''Then the next band I got into was Guns N' Roses. I don't really know how that transition took place, but I think I really grew up listening to lots of different types of genres.

''I love cinematic music and anything strange and weird. Wesley [Schultz, guitar] and I write all the music and he grew up on stuff that his father liked such as Talking Heads and Bruce Springsteen. I think there's a blend we bring to the table, where we don't have the same exact influences, but write well together.''

so, okay then.

I was thinking about similar things recently when I saw some ridiculous band whose every stylistic and sonic element seemed taken directly from Animal Collective - I figure I can make a pretty nuanced aesthetic argument about bands taking sonic (and other) referents that they don't know the roots of, and so in some way not really understanding how the sounds n structures they're using function in the ear of the listener who knows that stuff, leaving us with a displeasing uncanny or 'inauthentic' mess in the Mumfords or Lumineers manner. But ultimately I like plenty of stuff that could easily pass as a casual ripoff of this or that, so I don't know what to do with that other than accept that the argument kind of goes out the window if the bands somehow happen to be 'good' despite what I'm thinking of as their higher-level artistic failings.

I dunno, I'm not a huge fan of Mumford & Sons or the Lumineers or anyone else trafficking in this sound, but nor do I completely understand what it is about a certain kind of earnest rock band -- Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie, and Arcade Fire -- that gets ILMers riled up so much. Part of it, I gather, is that these bands' presentation of "authenticity" is pernicious inasmuch as it encourages people to see them as much better or more important than they actually are. (In contrast to most other pop music, which is recognized as "just" pop music.) But I think the reaction to that phenomenon among certain "knowledgeable" music fans is to treat these bands as much worse than they actually are.

xpost to Merdeyeux, i think that is similar to the impasse contenderizer described upthread: any "rule" you make about what separates good -- or authentic, or original, or any other value-laden critical term -- from bad, is bound to have many glaring exceptions that you can't account for. like, i mentioned before i like beirut, and their thing is also producing an effect of warm, fuzzy nostalgia by bending older folk forms (mostly european in their case i think, but i'm far from an expert) to the catchy pop song format. there is nothing "critical" about beirut's music, and there is also nothing partic. "self-aware" about it like with the rolling stones who exploited the dissonance between who they were and what their music sounded like. but it still "works" somehow (for me), while the lumineers don't, and it is hard to account for this. like, the whole thing doesn't "feel" as contrived as the lumineers, and any contrivance i am aware of in the act of listening doesn't feel like a bad thing, kind of like how a tastefully, period-appropriately furnished colonial house doesn't feel artifical, even if it has modern appliances. the contrivance is able to feel natural; the illusion works even though it doesn't...

i think what might be going on is that "good" bands have a more unified, meaningful aesthetic vision than bad bands. they are able to sound like themselves, even when their source material is super-obvious, and comes from all over the place. i think the "mess" you hear with the lumineers song is like how orwell described sloppy thinking: pre-fabricated phrases and ideas are "tacked together like hen-houses." a good band synthesizes their source material in a way that is "meaningful", even if it is hard (or impossible) to articulate what exactly this "meaning" is.

sorry if that was super-long.

i think there are way more long posts itt than the subject requires but that's just me

hey ho stfu lumineers the end :)

if we work hard enough we'll be able to figure out precisely why we should be telling them to stfu, and then they'll have to agree!

some enjoy finding the corn in a turd, some step over it, i guess

pf, i think you're trying way too hard to ground your rejection of the lumineers in some empirically observable failing on their part. like, in orter to justify disliking them, you feel you have to solve for the difference between good and bad bands.

as i was suggesting earlier, your distaste may have more to do with you than with them. to have a certain kind of taste, after all, is not to be right. it is to be particular.

well then. I guess we can just pack up ILM and go home.

tbf, you can do a lot worse than all of these bands (I assume; I've only heard the one Lumineers song). What I hate about it is that it is so mundane, so far from anything challenging or interesting. Heard the last Coldplay described as rice pudding, and that's about it: it's a fine use of leftover white rice. I don't get why people hate on Arcade Fire, who are tangential to this. I think that band does try to challenge its audience while aiming for something grandiose and moving and relevant. It's the worst elements of Arcade Fire that get stolen by bands like the Lumineers, who lack sound and vision, like they were drawn up as a dorm room idea before anyone even picked up a guitar. Like, one of them goes to the other with a pencil sketch - "I've got an idea for a band!"

Coldplay bother me because they have this numbing, lulling quality. They sound like the feeling of being on a moving walkway in an international airport. There's nothing wrong with comfort music, but to me they feel like comfort music for people who only ever listen to comfort music. I don't want to overproject about their audience, but that's what I hear -- three time-tested chords, a "pretty" arrangement, a very steady, non-dynamic pulse, a "pretty" melody not sung with too much of any single emotion, not even quite melancholy. SSRI music. I guess maybe this all sounds a little adolescent of me.

It bugs me because it's pretty safe to begin with, yet at every turn they make decisions to be even safer. There are ways to make all this stuff interesting, but they are not interested in that. Bands like Mumford are what you get when you start out with warm rice pudding and work down from there.

But hey, they're fun to make fun of, which is important, too. U2 won't be around forever.

I guess maybe this all sounds a little adolescent of me.

it does, tbf, but i think you and JiC are pointing your critiques in the the right direction, describing what you want and aren't getting from acts like the lumineers and coldplay. you want to be challenged, unsettled and interested, pushed out of your comfort zone, offered something other than soothing reassurances. as i suggested earlier (in talking about my own tastes), this perhaps indicates a critical or even an alienated stance vis-a-vis some hazily constructed comfort-zone status quo. extended far enough, these sorts of dissatisfied, oppositional desires can even acquire a political dimension, as they did in 70s punk and 80s indie rock. psychologically speaking, there is something adolescent about critiques of this type, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I think this music is adolescent.

I think this music is pre-adolescent.

i still fill like there is more going on here than just the fact that the lumineers are "bland" and "unchallenging." there are many bands i like that are soothing and reassuring; i listen to "music for airports" all the time. dismissing blandness, or nostalgia, or whatever as categories is too simple and i don't think it gets to the heart of the issue, which i do think has something to do with what you could broadly call "authenticity." the lumineers are presenting us with a transparently contrived entertainment product. it's not that they're "bland", it's that whatever they are presenting doesn't seem to be coming from an honest place, and that doesn't express anyone's specific, coherent artistic vision. it tries too hard to please and isn't interested in saying anything.

i mean, my 74-year-old mom is no dummy, but she exclusively listens to comforting, soothing music. she especially likes enya, windam hill-style new age ambient, and slack-key guitar. (this isn't entirely an artifact of age. she's always gone for soft, warm pillow music.)

my interests are somewhat different, but i don't have to pronounce enya bad and wrong in order to validate that. around christmas time, you could do a hell of a lot worse. mom & i can happily agree on john fahey and leonard kwan. the gap between windam hill and eno's ambient work is often very narrow.

afaict, the main sonic difference between that stuff and the lumineers is that the lumineers are a hell of a lot more insistent. they're not content to chime and burble away in the background. they want to occupy some forward space with their yelping and light bulb stomping. as a result, they're harder to casually permit if you're not actually a fan. fuckers need swatting.

dismissing blandness, or nostalgia, or whatever as categories is too simple and i don't think it gets to the heart of the issue, which i do think has something to do with what you could broadly call "authenticity." the lumineers are presenting us with a transparently contrived entertainment product. it's not that they're "bland", it's that whatever they are presenting doesn't seem to be coming from an honest place, and that doesn't express anyone's specific, coherent artistic vision. it tries too hard to please and isn't interested in saying anything.

that's where we differ. i don't see any reason to accuse them of dishonesty or even the lack of a coherent artistic vision. i assume they genuinely like the music they make and have a clear idea of what they're going for. and there's nothing at all wrong with trying to make an audience happy. the happy they're offering just happens to bug the shit out of me. it's entirely personal. i hate them.

maybe. i guess for me, personally, it's not accurate to say that i don't like blandness because i like a lot of bands that are inoffensive and immediately pleasurable. i think the difference between the lumineers' sensibility and even something like the oft-maligned fleet foxes' is subtle, indefinable, but ultimately has something to do with artistic seriousness and, yes, authenticity, which is a word i am using in a possibly idiosyncratic way.

good thread though.

can't imagine that's the consensus, but i'm enjoying it :)

The difference between this band and Fleet Foxes is as vast as the difference between CSNY and America.

i think the difference between the lumineers' sensibility and even something like the oft-maligned fleet foxes' is subtle, indefinable, but ultimately has something to do with artistic seriousness and, yes, authenticity, which is a word i am using in a possibly idiosyncratic way.

constructs like "artistic seriousness" and "authenticity" are awfully hard to nail down. tbh, i think they're often a kind of critical cheat, a lazy means of freighting simple expressions of taste with an unearned aura of significance. if we allow room for play, costume, irony, humor and pleasure-seeking in art, then it becomes very hard to draw simple, clear battle lines between the real and the fake, the serious and whatever we imagine might oppose it.

xp lol

The difference between this band and Fleet Foxes is as vast as the difference between CSNY and America.

to their death

xp i feel like there are certain "spirits" in which play, costumes, etc. can be done that are different than others (cf. my annoying explanation upthread of the difference between inauthentic authenticity and authentic inatuthenticity). it may be impossible to make real "rules" about these kinds of things -- and if there are rules that seem to work most of the time, there are always lots of acts that transcend them somehow and it's hard to tell why -- but i feel like these differences are real, and significant, and i think that these are the things we respond to when something appeals to us or repels us. in the case of the lumineers, i just think it's more complicated than the fact that they are bland and unexciting, idk, i just think the cultural politics of these types of things are more complex than that.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQnvTwT9jcp1CBpaHRSacVLBoOmBvMTB_zA5dMyDryd_BNNntrAnw

and lock

probably about time for this thread to be put away tbh. i hope the members of the lumineers discover it one day and find something to think about.

careful, don't tip your hand

not enough Lumerians in this thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozznS-lGslo

i dig that lumerians track.

they're awesome. do a good "crazy horses" too.

djp/vegemitegrrl otm throughout thread but man, i miss defend the indefensible. because if this were defend the indefensible i could point out that these guys seem to have drawn a lot of attention away from kings of leon.

why is peter gabriel itt

tra·di·tion
[truh-dish-uhn]
noun

4.a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practice.

Usage: "There is a long tradition of phony-baloney bands co-opting or enlisting lazy signifiers, trends and fashions as a shortcut to success."

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, April 15, 2013 3:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fair enuff. still weird, like alla sudden there were half a dozen o-towns and 98 deg bands popping up without there being any backstreet or nsync in the vicinity to explain it. keane without coldplay and coldplay without radiohead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJO35zU5bXg

I have never knowingly heard this band but I have important opinions about them:

http://i45.tinypic.com/33uyk2e.jpg

lol

Hanson have sunk to a new low

haha

hahaha rev

that needs to go viral

i just realized that the reaction to these fools is basically the same reaction some people had to mall punks

which mall punks did you kill, marry, and fuck, respectively?

America (the band) is awesome.

America this, sucker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Adx0RXpvg

None of the above, gross

seeing 'Ho Hey' embedded in the 'hipster music that seemed specifically manufactured for Apple commercials' thread made me realise that I'd been yakking on in this thread without having heard anything by The Lumineers. \o/

now I have, bucket of shite.

ha this morning i listened to lumineers songs other than hit single for the first time, just to feel informed. :(

http://www.yourmusicisawful.com/2013/04/hey-kids-grow-a-pair-how-music-blogs-neutered-indie-rock/

phenomenon of indie tending toward the soft and non-confrontational might be a thing, but her explanation of the cause is pretty ridiculous

This is the blog post he's talking about http://www.theworldforgot.com/2013/02/24/the-best-albums-of-2012/

What a load of bollocks. Who's even heard of this random, rubbish blog? I like its tagline though: "I don't listen to bad music, neither should you."

Sorry - "she's"

Blogs have created a structure in which the handful of kids writing for the elite establishment like Pitchfork or Stereogum choose whatever unoriginal crap they like that week and all the little blogs fall in line. They are all so busy jumping on each other’s bandwagons, nobody has bothered to notice their wagon train has been driving in a circle for roughly a decade now.

I mean, what? How so? And why more than print media used to? And why would this necessarily favor "neutered" indie?

if anything, as seen on this thread, people who are deeper into music, record collectors etc., favor more challenging stuff and get irritated by music that's satisfied to remain predictable.

i think this kind of super twee, bland indie music is more marketable to mainstream audiences than other kinds of indie music, which is why it's so popular. apple is the culprit moreso than pitchfork which, say what you will about it, champions lots of different kinds of things.

fwiw almost none of the records on that list she cites were in the metacritic top 25 for the year, whereas a lot of heavy-ish stuff like Swans, High on Fire, Converge and Tame Impala was.

http://www.theworldforgot.com/twf/pic/cloud_cult_08.jpg

Holy shit who are this shower? I could never countenance listening to a band who look like that.

they look like a campus theater company, like not the actual drama majors but one of those extra-curricular clubs without much budget

I think I remember reading that only one person in a band photo should be wearing a loud or colorful pattern, and this is a good example of that

barenaked ladies style most REDACTED looking member thread stat

i think I'm between crouching flight goggles, bandana pirate guy and trombone jack. Although the collagen lips girl is pretty annoying too.

each of them holding the item they would be beaten with moments later

wait I think the flight goggles might actually be a sleeping mask. or a very tiny brazierre.

re: that your music is awful post -- i dunno, starting to glamorize the early 90s as some kind of golden age for music taste and community just seems ... wrong.

also hilarious that a blog/podcast urging kids to "grow a pair" are posting about ...
The Smiths
Camera Obscura
British Sea Power
Verve
etc...

is this like that time brooklyn was to blame for dc's band scene going zzz

that post is so terrible it makes me want to like the lumineers and mumford. just saw it on my fb timeline and went here to post it but saw i'd been beaten to it. also Matt & Kim are great and i thought jack white like rocked or something, i dunno?

"the elite establishment like Pitchfork or Stereogum"

"Lets go back to doing what we used to do. Hanging out at record stores, going to shows, talking to actual people about what they’re listening to." they have record stores still what?

i don't like the kneejerk dismissal of "twee" music, especially when terms like "neutered" and "grow a pair" are used which implies that rawk music should be tough and not "feminized." fuck that paradigm. it seems overtly sexist to me.

the problem with mumfords/lumineers isn't "tweeness", it has to do with the fact that theirs is an unimaginative, blandly nostalgic sort of costume theater, and it doesn't communicate anything meaningful to me.

criticizing mumfordeers from the standpoint of 'authenticity' is pretty heavy lulz tho.

i mean, i'm glad i was able to help you experience authentic laughter... something REAL.

but i think i stand by most of the stuff i said on this thread anyway, except for the things i already redacted.

booming post

v authentic

stand by yr old man hat

sweet

good response to that blog post: http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/music-blogs-arent-the-enemy-you-are

not sure that blog post warranted entertaining / a response / being taken seriously

i dunno, i saw it in about a dozen places yesterday, with people heartily agreeing with it.

I've never heard any of the bands cantstop cites as present-day nirvanas; "Destruction Unit, Wiccans, Lamps, Unholy Two or Hoax".... any good?

i dunno, i saw it in about a dozen places yesterday, with people heartily agreeing with it.

lol ok a friend was just "1000 TIMES YES" on facebook with it.

the memification of whiney?

1000 times lol

http://usedwigs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/nolike_0002-440x246.jpg

does that guy play a scroll of paper?

And lo, let it be decreed, what Cometh After us will Maketh you Regret saying a Negative Thing about us.

it's a player piano roll, I believe.

That guy on the left -- I really wanna kick his ass.

consulting the blueprints for their new banjo barn

player piano rolls have perforations in them and are not as wide? i think?

that's just a big roll of paper as far as I can tell

I was making a joke. I like the idea of a guy in Mumford playing the player piano roll. Because screw the machines, right? They do it by hand

http://usedwigs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/aaaTheLastBison.jpg

Hi, we're a band called The Last Bison. We have a lot of money behind us, which is ironic, since you know what we sound like just by looking at us.

lol sorry

http://usedwigs.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/nolike_019-440x363.jpg

I think we are somehow to blame for al this too, in some way, so we brought you flowers

I like the idea of featuring a player piano in one of these bands

xxpost okay seriously that's just insufferable

Or the nickelodeon. No one has featured one of those since Sailor. (xpost)

Ahead of the curve:

http://cdn1.gilt.com/giltmanual/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Harrison-Ford-Witness-Amish-hat-Flowers-720.jpg

all bands who dress like amish musicians from now on should be forced to raise a barn

lol it only just hit me that Jenny Conlee was Sparklepony on Portlandia

http://usedwigs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/nolike_0002-440x246.jpg

All their songs begin, "Hear ye! Hear ye!"

who are those people?

i think that's mumford and sons

really tempted to start trolling Revolt of the ILX Brigade: New Post-Fahey Folk For PPL that post in the Takoma & Tompkin's Square Threads in the LOL FOLK MUSIC style of this thread

Pretty bummed because a chum's band has slowly morphed into this sort of Dust Bowl nonsense, replete with stand-up bass and suspenders. Their profile says, ' We've got some Johnny Cash/June Carter going on. We've got some Civil Wars going on', which I thought was some old-timey schtick—oh, god, are they going to be wearing kepis and doing full-on re-enactment—but no, it seems the Civil Wars is some music duo. But that has to be the next step in this progression, right?

irl lol at Civil Wars mix-up

reminds me is there a thread for awful/kward band promo photos on here

yes, and there's also a search ;)

who are those people?

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Friday, April 19, 2013 5:43 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think that's mumford and sons

― authentically inauthentic (Pat Finn), Friday, April 19, 2013 5:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh by the way, which one's mumford

I stupid looking one.

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTHop0MUrKYDe8c7Fuqy5a6-5HXY4AB_RYK71oJzNvfezZDKs8

I've never heard any of the bands cantstop cites as present-day nirvanas; "Destruction Unit, Wiccans, Lamps, Unholy Two or Hoax".... any good?

hate the "present day nirvana" construction, with all the impossible freighting inevitably attached, but sure, there's some rough commonality in the fusion of punk confrontation, rock kicks and (occasional) pop hooks. still, nirvana covered that last base better than any of the above. d-unit used to be harsh, raging synth punk, but they've gone psych lately. last couple are pretty damn good. wiccans are throwback hardcore. lamps fucking rule. noise rock done right. never got the hang of unholy two, but i've only heard a couple tracks. hoax?

thnx for the breakdown, will check further....

best advice i can give is to buy lamps records. or steal them and send me the cash equivalent. all their stuff is p great, but i particularly dig the self-titled debut from 2005 and the recent under the water under the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqbz4pq8QPA

give it a minute. their early shit is more garagey, but they get blockier as they go along. riyl a-frames, intelligence, cramps.

nurvana connection is tenuous at best, thank god

while we're on the subject of bands that sound nothing like either nirvana or the lumineers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5ppIEiqg8Y

this thread contains multitudes

yeah. dig that lamps.
also, to be fair, blog dude didn't really float those bands as new nirvanas, more as examples of current bands "with balls" (while also calling out balls as a musical criteria). anyway, got me curious, and now i have discovered some cool bands. thanks, lumfords thread.

http://journalofmusic.com/sites/default/files/images/inline/manhattansyndrome-585x336.jpg

:(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pk_2dVPjms

fits thread overall, but these two ladies have kind of amazing voices

Blame Seattle.

thx seattle for macklemore and the lumineers

u fuckers

always knowed it werent denvers fault *snaps suspenders*

yeah, but denver is definitely responsible for the flobots who in some ways are like a combo of macklemore and the lumineers...and about ten other terrible things.
http://www.denver.org/secure/Images/Upload/flobots.jpg

i wonder how much time those guys spend hanging around abandoned dirt lots. seems authentic.

I believe this is a prophesy coming to pass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtAGthTm5d4

Ha!

I miss the comfort in being twee.

Or tweed, take your pick.

'Violin Players With 'TUDE' = innocuous thing that makes me irrationally angry

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzpt0caJON1r9l2zqo1_400.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSzygXDUc3ENZ7wgirfP1uAD5yIjv6btFC1f5ZjBr4hQIKKi6MQPg

"punk" volin players used to be a thing. right? kilts. doc martins.

And Doctors of Madness!

They're playing Mumford & Sons on the local mainstream country radio, btw. Which is ironic, because that band is more country than a lot of the country country radio plays.

ok, the loews jingle that just played during a spotify commercial break involved a lumineersian "ho! hey!" in the background. i think that "ho! hey!" thing is going to become a real "thing", and continue to show up in unexpected places.

yeah before you know it they'll be shouting "ho!" and "hey!" in rap songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fty29zmxndo

okay NOW I can listen to that stupid song

LOL

lol. i enjoyed this thread a lot, especially my back and forth with contenderizer on the topic of "authenticity."

the girl from the lumineers seems likable to me. smiling, unpretentious, and not wearing a fedora.

the only bits i've seen of the video are from what i just posted, and in her limited screen time i don't understand why she looks so jubilantly happy. and why the other guy suddenly looks so jubilantly happy when nothing in the song's tone in that moment suggests jubilant happiness. or why they're singing in the video at all when it only sounds like there's one male voice during the whole verse??

she's just happy about lyfe

someone posted about this festival on fb and i looked up the festival and omg
http://www.gentlemenoftheroad.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYYYAeSWOlI

I notice Haim have been roped in.

In 2012 we began hosting our Gentlemen of the Road Stopovers, a global series of events in small cities and towns around the world. We spent months selecting unique places, creating venues, building the lineups, planning the aftershows, and getting to know the local people who helped make the whole thing work. The results were some of the most amazing and memorable shows we've ever played – and we've played a lot of shows! We hope those of you who made it had as much fun as we did.

This year we've expanded the lineups, changed the format, and worked to improve the experience in ways big and small. We have new towns, new countries, new artists, and new campsites that will become an intimate part of each event. Plus tons of surprises you'll have to see for yourselves! We really couldn't be more excited. But the spirit of the project remains: a music festival that celebrates local people, food and culture, where everyone pitches in and everybody gets something back.

Please join us if you can.

Mumford & Sons

You annoying fucksticks.

"Gentlemen of the Road Stopovers" really sounds like a euphemism for a homosexual rendezvous at a highway rest stop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASO_zypdnsQ

http://cdn.gentlemenoftheroad.com/cdn/resized/cdn/images/_large/MSusatour2012HiResDigitalSelectsIMG_6198-2-300x200.jpg
http://cdn.gentlemenoftheroad.com/cdn/resized/cdn/images/_large/GOTRgalwayJMH-IMG_2425-300x200.jpg

people seem to be having a good time

haha, i was about to write something like "hey let these people have their fun," but that thumbs up banner lollllllz

That's a hand-made woodcut 'like' stamp from when social networks were more authentic.

That Harry Caray thing is perfect.

they were on Colbert last night. drummer had suspeders and a dirty tshirt. the bassist wore a knit cap, a tie, glasses, and was BAREFOOT. I hate them forever.

I left the room during the break before they came on. Didn't turn off the tv, but didn't watch.

Yeah let these people have a good time but yeah suspenders and fedoras are dumb then again all popular music has lame fashion cues and performance mask attached to it are they really any lamer than the rock band that refuses to smile

Sometimes you just got to move from Brooklyn into your friends place in Denver to make it big, the world is a strange place

I had friends who went to one of those Gentlemen of the Road deals somewhere out from here. They were really impressed that the Mumford dudes played basketball with their kids. My friends' kids, that is. I think the Mumfords are too young to have kids.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02427/mumford3_2427266b.jpg

I'm hoping the Americana thing is eventually going to lead to some steampunk group blowing up and going mega-mainstream.

troy seems pretty authentic when i drive through it. there's a grain elevator right at the edge of town, i think. dunno how much traction americana gets around here, tho, because people who live here don't live far enough away from here to mythologize it that way. mostly it's just actual bluegrass festivals or else trace adkins summer country jam type of stuff. also juggalos and jamband fans.

don't know how you'd celebrate local food unless skyline has a location there. cassano's pizza i like but that's no reason to make this one of only 3 u.s. stops.

or stopovers, whatever.

i don't know if it's this band or which of the dueling banjos bands it is, but i swear that it takes a lot of agitation to make me turn off the radio in disgust and the song i have heard yesterday and today has brought me to that point

i think it might be mumfords but who the f knows all i can hear are the stupid banjos and some quasi-xtian sounding heavily harmonized male singing about waiting
i can try to have sympathy for people who like this song, but i seriously hope i never have to listen to it again

I think that's Mumford. I just found out the other day that his parents are the founders/leaders of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineyard_Churches_UK_and_Ireland which makes perfect sense.

whatever happened to wildin' out and being violent?

That will come with their midlife crises.

ugh i knew it
i could smell it through the radio
this is the guy they were following http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wimber
The pursuit of authenticity was core to Wimber's idea of church, and this was reflected in the worship as well.

the mumford kid is 26. damn, so many more years of singing like a grizzled old salt ahead of him...

Wimber held a complementarian view of gender roles. This view believes the Bible to teach that a husband is called to lovingly lead, protect and provide for his wife and family, and that the wife should joyfully and intelligently affirm and submit to her husbands leadership. Complementarians also believe the Bible to teach that men are to bear primary responsibility to lead the church and that therefore only men should be elders.[7]
Wimber said:
'I believe God has established a gender-based eldership of the church... I endorse the traditional (and what I consider the scriptural) view of a unique leadership role for men in marriage, family, and in the church... this [view] ultimately reflects the hierarchy of the Trinity.'[8]
'I personally do not favor ordaining women as elders in the local church...I encourage our women to participate in any ministry, except church governance.' [8]
Sam Storms comments: 'Others would point out that in spite of his complementarian convictions, Wimber permitted at least two notable exceptions: both Jackie Pullinger (Hong Kong) and Ann Watson (England) served as the senior leaders of their respective congregations (although I should mention that Watson viewed her role as exceptional, given the premature death of her husband, and not a position to which women in ordinary circumstances should aspire).'[8]

i will wait...to have sex with you until you are my wife and i can allow you to serve me joyfully and intelligently and affirm my leadership

Imagine having Mumford dude as your reverend.

"And now a song to illustrate my point."

im mumford btw

So you're the guy.

You and your heartfelt singalongs, your armwavers.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-520560a3/turbine/ct-ae-0811-jobs-kutcher-interview-20130809-001/600/600x400

About that brown hat: Kutcher had a story.

“I was outside of London when the bombing happened in Boston,” he said. “I happened to be wearing a Boston hat at the time. Just coincidentally. I'm not really a Boston fan. I just had a Boston hat, and I was wearing the Boston hat, and this kid asked me to trade the Boston hat for his hat.”

“You're kidding me,” said Gad, 32.

“And I was like, ‘I think you need the Boston hat,' and I gave him the Boston hat, and he gave me this hat.”

“It's a good hat,” Stern said. “Also, you have the face that could pull off any hat.”

“I feel like Mumford & Sons,” Kutcher said. “I feel like one of the Lumineers.”

lol

who the fuck asks anyone to trade hats unless they're drunk

i don't understand