Mumford & Sons Ditch the Folk
Of course, album sales aren’t everything. And, if you’re cynical enough, you might surmise that Mumford & Sons have updated their sound with contemporary touchstones—like slick, spacey production by Aaron Dessner of the National—in an effort to achieve a different type of success. Say, that of the Pitchfork-ian ilk. After all, the critical class has long had a hate-on for the band, big enough for NME to ask, “Why Do People Hate Mumford & Sons So Much?” The answer: the Mumford boys don’t actually drive tractors and say “y’all” a lot.
Is releasing an entirely banjo-less album the band’s answer to those allegations of inauthenticity, then?
“No!” insists Lovett. “And I think the view you’re giving is definitely a very skin-deep, part-time awareness of Mumford & Sons’ view. People who know our music know there’s much more to what we’re about than a banjo or a specific photo they’re thinking of. The idea of being inauthentic is just so bizarre to us, because we’ve just been so true to making the music we want to make and telling the stories we want to tell. Everything we write is autobiographical.”
“People who know our music know there’s more to what we’re about than a banjo.”
Man has a point. Textural variation aside, Wilder Mind is still brimming with the kind of heart-rending, lump-in-throat sincerity that can only be described as Mumford-esque. Flugelhorns be damned, these are still songs to shout, cry, make love and get spurned to. Real feelings from real people, who really couldn’t give a fuck whether you approve or not. It don’t get more authentic than that.
“If people don’t like it, we’re willing to accept that,” says Dwane. “But we’re going to enjoy playing the songs regardless.”
So put that in your corncob pipe and puff on it.
