The Lumineers

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.