The Lumineers

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.