Here to Illuminate Your Music Taste
Written by Brighton Bischofberger
This article is going to be on The Lumineers. Yes, that Lumineers. The ones who blew up in 2012 with their Folk-Pop smash ‘Ho-Hey’. Now maybe you’re thinking, “Blasphemy! I want to mosh! Why would he start his writing stint with Scene Daddy talking about a band that’s not considered in the scene?” Well, because it’s good music and I believe good music no matter the genre should be shared. I love the Pop-Punk/Emo/Indie genres. It’s why I wanted to write for this site. It will always be a part of me. However, I also greatly enjoy other genres like Folk/Americana/Indie-Pop. I think as music fans, we can learn a lot by listening to other styles of music. It’s all art, and even if you’re not a huge fan of something, that doesn’t mean you can’t admire the craft that goes into it. So here is my attempt to show you why I think The Lumineers are a band we all can join hands and sing along to.
I, like most people first discovered the Colorado based band by hearing ‘Ho-Hey’ on the local indie station. That song was so simple and catchy that I couldn’t help but enjoy it every time it played, even if it did eventually get a bit overplayed by radio after it gained huge popularity. Even with that songs major success, I think a lot of people figured The Lumineers would fade into irrelevance as just another “Old-Timey Folk Band” following in the footsteps of Mumford and Sons. To be honest, at the time when Mumford and Sons were all the rage, that wouldn’t have been a crazy thought. However, The Lumineers had something different. Something that many of these other bands thrown into that same ring did not have.
Authenticity. I believe that when a new music trend starts, many will follow to tap into that trend’s success. Some will rise, and some will fall. That’s the way it is. This isn’t to say that many less successful bands in the same genre weren’t authentic artists, but I think The Lumineers quickly found what made them special and crafted their sound around it. Some bands end up just sounding like another popular artist and eventually blend into an undiscernible pile of vanilla paste. Nothing stands out. This didn’t happen to them.
As their second massive single ‘Stubborn Love’ took off, you could start to pick apart the trademark ingredients in The Lumineers soup. Organic instrumentation that beautifully mixed Neyla Pekarek’s Cello/String pieces with the driving Acoustic Guitar of Lead Singer Wesley Schultz. One also can’t forget the accompaniment of mandolin/piano as well as energetic percussion and soulful vocal harmonies of Jeremiah Fraites. This was a recipe built for success and one that would only get better as the band gained more experience.
From there, the band continued to tour with their new-found success and released their follow up album Cleopatra in the spring of 2016. This saw the band really continue to refine their craft and grow as songwriters. The lead single ‘Ophelia’ might be on my list of favorite songs of all-time. The main piano riff is just pure bliss and that combined with the strong sing-along melody of “Oh-Ophelia, heaven help the fool who falls in love” in the chorus is just the cherry on top. There’s a reason this song blew up when it was released because it’s just that good. ‘Cleopatra’ the title track is a gorgeous song that is based on a real encounter that Wesley Schultz had while in a Republic of Georgia Taxi. As stated by the band in a Genius Verified Annotation,
“The song Cleopatra is largely inspired by a real person I met in the Republic of Georgia who is a female taxi driver. The song is unique to others we have written because I wrote it from a female’s perspective. We often get asked why the title Cleopatra – for this song, the name worked so well because here is this young girl, overflowing with confidence and believing the world is her oyster – she will rule it one day! As she looks back, she realizes that at that age, we try on all of these masks of identity, like an actress. We are confident in the world and ourselves, but with very little experience to back that up.”
How can you not be intrigued by that level of dedication to a story? The band took this interaction a step farther by creating ‘The Ballad of Cleopatra’. This collection of music videos took a whopping five songs (Ophelia, Cleopatra, Sleep on the Floor, Angela, and My Eyes) and tied them all together to bring the story of Cleopatra to life. The band has even carried their commitment to visual storytelling into their latest releases. Their upcoming September release titled “III” will be a concept album based on the spirals of addiction throughout generations of a fictional family and once again features a visual storyline to accompany the album. They have released videos so far for ‘Donna’, ‘Life in the City’, ‘Gloria’, and ‘It Wasn’t Easy to Be Happy for You’. I’m telling you right now, if you have not watched this collection of videos so far, stop reading this and go watch them. I will link them below.
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXsQJhoauxc&w=854&h=480]
So after all of my rambling, I need to tie this all together. Why should scene fans listen to The Lumineers?? Well, I think it is a pretty simple answer. Among all fellow scene fans I’ve talked to over the years, one common theme always seems to reign supreme as to why they listen to the bands they do. Authenticity in the lyrics. Authenticity in the instrumentals. Songs that you can sing along to by yourself or with 1,000 other people in a crowd and songs that just make you feel something. Yeah, maybe you’re not a fan of Folk music and that’s ok! I can’t force you to like the gentle sound of a Mandolin or the emotive melodies of a fiddle. Just consider this for me though.
This is a band that has dedicated their career to documenting stories. This isn’t your average folk band singing about living in the countryside and heartbreak. These songs and albums are crafted perfectly to ensure they are properly telling the story they want to tell. The effort they’ve put into the accompanying videos is astounding and they add so many more layers to these already meaningful songs. This band is doing things that a lot of bands in this mainstream era just aren’t doing, and not only that, they’re doing a damn good job of it. The Lumineers are in a class of their own, and I believe that fans from around the scene can connect and find a home in them.
Brighton’s Go-To Songs:
**Header photo: Paste Magazine**