Thursday, December 16, 2010

COOL ALBUM ALERT: MUMFORD & SONS - SIGH NO MORE

Hopefully by now, you've heard of Mumford & Sons.  They are a sort of traditional folk quartet from England who remind me a lot of a smaller, British version of Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions Band. And I'm not sure how this happened, but they've become huge in the past year. Nearly 775,000 people "like" them on Facebook, and they have nearly 14,000,000 views on their video for "Little Lion Man," a huge hit that I've heard on top 40 radio and which will be on VH1's Top 40 Videos of 2010 tomorrow night.

Actually, scratch what I said before, I do know how they've been so successful.  They write great songs, they sound like they are absolutely committed to what they do, and they aren't trying to conform to any trends. I imagine a lot of other bands watch them with envy and admiration. It's clear that they've stuck to what their original vision was, and they are very successful doing it, despite the fact that they don't resemble any other top 40 artists these days (or this decade, or the last few decades).

I'd heard that there was a huge buzz around this band, but I didn't get around to checking them out, until I found out that I would be filming a performance by the band at my day job. So I figured I'd pick up the album, and I was pretty blown away the first time I heard it. Great songs, great playing, great arrangements and great singer. In some ways they actually remind me of The Dave Matthews Band. Not sonically.  But when I first saw The DMB on one of the small stages at the H.O.R.D.E. festival years ago, I thought they sounded great, but didn't think the public would buy into them en masse. I mean, a violinist, a sax player, no electric guitar, bi-racial... it's too much for people to understand. But Dave wrote great songs, and really didn't care about any trends, he has always been true to himself, and we all know how that turned out. Who knows, maybe it will work out that way for Mumford & Sons.  Which will make this session that I filmed all the more special.  Check it out: this is a performance of a song called "Sister" which they have yet to release. The entire performance blew me away, but this unreleased song seemed to be a really cool moment.

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