Mumford and Sons

Neil McCormick is the Telegraph's chief rock music critic.

Neil McCormick is the Telegraph's chief rock music critic.

never forget: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3645201/Bono-told-me-Your-song-needs-to-be-heard-now.html

xp!

It was clear we were facing an indie tory PM from the point where he picked Perfect Circle by REM on Desert Island Discs, no?

really i'm just curious how toryism's been so widely projected on to mumford & sons when it's not overtly present in either their music or their public statements (afaik, am not an expert on their oeuvre by any means) - suspected it was just lazy thinking and this is being confirmed

It's not Toryism, it's ridiculous aesthetic conservatism, to the point of self-parody. But they're massively popular with Middle England partly for that reason, and it chimes with 'trendy but regressive with rural values' Cameronism.

ie we're not saying they're Tories (although they might be), more that they make a perfect soundtrack to Cameron's Britain.

The Smiths were also hugely aesthetically conservative so it's not much of a surprise that Cameron likes them.

although they might be

I doubt it tbh

It's not Toryism, it's ridiculous aesthetic conservatism, to the point of self-parody.

are they particularly distinct from other shitty indie acts around atm then?

Dear Homies,

Thank you again for reading this cumbersome and pretty sad excuse for a book club. I've given up apologizing for now. So it's a bit of "take it or leave it" I'm afraid.

I was slightly blown away by people's response to The Outline of Sanity. Partly just cos so many people successfully found it! I haven't recorded my reaction to it here, and I'm actually fine with that (this isn't just a cop out)... I feel this book, even more than any others, is so brilliantly written and explained, that any of my attempted commentary won't really add to it. It's also ridiculously dense, and so rich that there's just too much to talk about in a pretty limited blog.

Suffice to say it's changed my life; but I don't expect it to, or even feel that it must, have the same effect on everyone! I think even if you disagree vehemently with what GKC puts forward, it's still a really refreshing experience to read such well considered and intriguing lines of argument. Especially now, on pretty hot topics like 'big vs small business', 'private vs public ownership', 'the man-made vs the natural', etc. The actual political ideal of Distributism, I'm still getting my head around, if I'm honest. But his thinking and his writing are just plain bitchin, in my very humble opinion!

Distributism anyone?

are they particularly distinct from other shitty indie acts around atm then?

I'd say they were even more so. I mean, look at them:

http://www.clashmusic.com/files/imagecache/big_node_view/files/images/Mumford-and-Sons-otw.jpg

xpost to Matt: But does tapping English folk for your influences necessarily equate to aesthetic conservatism, especially given the currently flourishing state of contemporary folk? (There's been a major artistic and commercial resurgence over the past few years, failed BNP entryism notwithstanding.) Sure, M&S (LOL) offer a watered-down version, but pop has always plundered with impunity. I think there could be some questionable assumptions as to what folk represents.

Not really, because when I think of folk I mostly think of protest music or bearded CAMRA lefties. But those aspects don't really come through in Mumford & Sons - like I said upthread they're basically arena rock with folky knobs on. It's badly tapping into a classicism and misrepresenting it in the process. It'd be like a band doing Springsteen and just focussing on a sepia-tinted American past and leaving out all the blue-collar stuff.

The idea that modernity doesn't last has been knocking around in bands like this since Britpop but Mumford & Sons put it really front-centre.

Their involvement with Laura Marling makes me think they can't be all bad

... in spite of the overwhelming evidence that they are

are their lyrics particularly small-c conservative, or is it just a failure of execution? i think what i'm getting at is, is this a definite ethos that they actively push, or is it just conservative in the same way that oasis always were? (and obv you'd never call oasis or their equivalents - brother these days i guess - the perfect band for cameron's britain)

No they probably ARE the latter-day equivalents of Oasis in terms of their position, Brother aren't popular enough to hold that role. They're conservative in the way Ocean Colour Scene were conservative, but with folk instead of mod. And folk is hundreds of years older so they naturally seem more conservative, and you can really sing things like "oh, man is a giddy thing" without sounding a bit ridiculous.

Their lyrics aren't particularly small c conservative from what I've heard.

Lyrics are natural-seasonal-religious imagery, but very woolly: a directly Romantic notion of authenticity. Coldplay, with flowers. Oasis, landfill lyrics more urban, doses of pop-surreal, in a more obvious post-Lennon rock tradition?

Can be hard to figure out what's going on in a Mumford lyric, sompared to The Wombats say. Could be talking to God, could be a girl, could be a mate he's let down.

... or a manservant, valet, groom

"I've really fucked it up this time, Jeeves"

Little Lion Man was a common phrase used among 18th century slavemasters iirc.

I do think there's some significance in them using folk music as a way for posh chaps to bond (yuck) with the common man (yuck). Picking up acoustic instruments and dressing like extras from a Hardy adaptation is enabling some sort of blurring of social position that they would never have achieved if they'd have been all britpop swagger and well into footie.

Maybe they just want to be hobbits.

I think that NZ has enough troubles without us sending them there for filming.

*trying hard not to make shit joke about 'hobbit-forming' or something equally as bad*

"Tragedy struck Mumford and Sons today when a strangely specific earthquake..."

Actually, wait, NZ worships the Fall, yeah? Mumford go down there, they'll be arrested at the airport, charged with being crap and dunked in the ocean.

x-post to the last picture. One of these instruments is not like the other ... It's like a picture of the Band if Garth had a Casio.

You mean the synth-washboard?

Has R. Carmody weighed in on this shower? Mumford-Boden-Cameron West London pseudo-ruralism would seem to be right up his analytical street.

But it's on a tartan rug... probably with a nice Chippendale cabinet underneath (xp)

Has R. Carmody weighed in on this shower?

please god no

I do think there's some significance in them using folk music as a way for posh chaps to bond (yuck) with the common man (yuck). Picking up acoustic instruments and dressing like extras from a Hardy adaptation is enabling some sort of blurring of social position that they would never have achieved if they'd have been all britpop swagger and well into footie.

― ka£ka (NickB), Friday, 25 February 2011 12:47 (17 minutes ago)

^^^

idk lex, this lot are really something special

whether they have admitted to voting tory is beside the point

x-post Ha, the Nord Washboard.

whether they have admitted to voting tory is beside the point

idk, i think when one describes someone as tory, this IS the point

No one has actually described them as Tory on this thread.

^^

lex had first mention today

it's been a common thing that i noticed, that's why i mentioned it

let's hope some of these people saying terrible slanderous things about les mumfords deign to explain themselves on ilx

Need Marcello's infallible Toryscope... perhaps not

Fwiw, I would never have thought of this band as "Tories"

uh it's not like i'm defending the mumfords or even know that much about them, was just wondering what exactly was going on here, but feel free to passantino the thread with disingenuous shit

xp

Whereas came as no surprise that Scouting For Girls guy was a "But we must do something to tackle the deficit" style Lib Dem (xp)

toryism seems kinda wrong anyway, i imagine them sublimating any sense of politics into a 'it's not about left and right' evasive ruritanian stupidity, a sugary mix of wishful thinking and apolitical amnesia about the risible doughty peasant tropes they trade in

cf their ostensibly non-denominational but evidently christianist rhetoric about 'faith'

guessing they are lib dems

I think the point is that it's apposite to have a Biggest Band In Britain who are massive musical reactionaries at the point at which we have particularly hateful Tory government again.

Most recent Biggest Bands In Britain wouldn't scare most Tories I'd imagine, but the Mumfords' image and sound plays into it as well.

Or the Mumfords have tapped into the British record buying public's inherent musical conservatism in a particularly irritating way - see also positioning themselves against anything "manufactured" (for which, read modern).

http://www.vangoghgallery.com/catalog/image/0067/Parsonage-Garden-at-Nuenen-in-the-Snow,-The.jpg

fuck a modernity, let's get the serfs to start an organic turnip processing co-op and sell it to ocado

nb i'd basically agree w/ lex that tory slurs shd be avoided if the recipients aren't soi disant tories -- explain from first principles (in this case aesthetic bankruptcy) when possible

The decider for these types of things should always be the would-they-play-Zac-Goldsmiths-next-barndance? test imo.