First, I want to be honest. I have never liked Mumford & Sons. I wish I could tell you that without sounding pretentious. It’s not because I’m too hipster for the hipsters. There are a number of reasons why their music rubs me the wrong way: the guy’s impassioned “English Dave Matthews” voice annoys me. And I feel like all of their songs sound the same: How many times can you listen to the same banjo arpeggiating, kick drum stroking, guitar hyper-strumming, generic lyric moaning redundancy? I really don’t care how well it’s produced or how polished it has become. It just doesn’t hold my interest. Mumford & Sons is to indie folk what Jack Johnson is to surf pop. And if you like both of these music-by-numbers artists, well, I’m sorry—you probably also think Thomas Kinkade beats out Rembrandt as the “painter of light.”
Redundant consistency has been the mainstay of pop movements for quite some time. But that isn’t what really irks me about Mumford & Sons. What annoys me is that Mumford & Sons and many of the other mainstreaming “indie” bands seem to be selling sincerity without being sincere. And people buy it because it looks sincere. The popularity of Mumford & Sons and bands like them originates from the fact that the general population is tired of cynicism and the ironic distance. But I hate to see what will happen to people when they find out that yet another “authentic” voice turns out to be nothing more than a hollow receptacle for their own longings.
