Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?, Part II

Another recent release, Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More, illustrates the shortcomings of a Pitchfork review. Personal preferences aside, it's hard to respect a review that seems more interested in crafting an elaborate allegory than actually exploring the merits of the music itself. Before anything else is mentioned, the review sets out to deride the name of the band. Sure, Mumford & Sons is not a great name, but Pitchfork never found it necessary to dissect the names of Hunx & His Punx, Dinowalrus, Let's Wrestle, New Young Pony Club, or Sunburned Hand of Man in reviews of those act's recent releases. What gives?

So yeah, back to the allegory. The fact that the frontman/songwriter of the band (whose last name is Mumford, by the way) decided to name his band Mumford & Sons, is clearly his way of trying to garner a sense of authenticity and compare himself/his music to family-owned businesses in real small towns run by real people for generations. Right? To be such a simple-minded rip-off artist, as the review suggests, Marcus Mumford sure does craft elaborate schemes when it comes to naming his band! Is it possible that a fairly lame, yet completely innocuous, name got stuck on his act, whether by his own doing or by someone else and he just went with it? Nevermind that Pitchfork calls its annual music festival in Chicago the, wait for it, Pitchfork Music Festival.

As for the music (the point, right?), by "providing value-added products at discount prices", Mumford & Sons have managed to poach material from Fleet Foxes...and Avett Brothers...and Kings of Leon...and Keane...and Gomez. Seriously? Can you really say a band is unoriginal when you cite that many different influences? It seems like the ability to pull together a hybrid of so many bands with so many different origins might actually be a good, diverse thing. Maybe?

The elements of those five bands cited include "group harmonies", "exaggerated earnestness", "rock 'real'-ness", "second-hand drama" and "insistent rusticisms". Since when did music with harmonies (a core musical element), earnestness (believability seems to be a good thing), "real"-ness (whatever that is, would "fake"-ness be better?), drama (it is songs about relationships, after all) and rusticisms (it is folk music, after all) become a bad thing? Couldn't these kind of ambiguous associations be made to any album? What it comes down to is that Mumford & Sons are British (sorta like Gomez) and play a new brand of folk music (see Avett Brothers). They're popular in England (but not as much as Kings of Leon) and seem to be generating some buzz in the U.S. (much like Keane). Then there are those harmonies, not to mention banjos (!), that could have only been written after listening to Fleet Foxes. Clearly both of these bands owe their entire existence to Ralph Stanley, or whoever invented the banjo/harmony combination.

Time for more influences. Don't forget Celtic melodies, Fairport Convention and Pentangle. Wait...did you say Fairport Convention and Pentangle? As in the Fairport Convention and the Pentangle? Midlake thinks they can sound like them too! The mission of Pitchfork has been identified: to protect and preserve the good names of Fairport Convention and Pentangle (both of made great music, by the way). Basically, Mumford & Sons, a British folk-rock band sound like British folk-rock bands. While they might not distance themselves drastically from recent upstarts like Frightened Rabbit, We Were Promised Jetpacks and Frank Turner, or historical acts like Fairport Convention or Pentangle, it's not a particularly egregious offense. Great Britain is not a huge place and there's only so many different ways to sing a song.

Listening to the album, you might at times think something you hear is reminiscent of something else you've heard, but that's part of what makes music fun. It's hard to believe that anyone hears this album and can only think about what an abomination it is that a band could make money off such blatant unoriginality. Like it or leave it, innovation or lack thereof is not what got this album released or into the ears of listeners. On Paul's Boutique, the Beastie Boys said, "Only 24 hours in a day, only 12 notes a man can play." True on both counts. However, since that particular album is primarily composed of sampled music and many sampled lyrics, Pitchfork probably thinks it is a piece of trash. Right?

Back to Mumford & Sons, once the review actually gets around to talking about the songs on the album being reviewed, the contradictions start rolling in and the wheels start coming off. In one paragraph alone, Mumford is accused of being "anonymous", but then "self-absorbed" as well. By this point, the review is completely useless. With a numerical rating at the beginning of the review, you already know what is going to be said and few surprises or interesting insights can be expected. In this case, the review could have gone on for several more paragraphs, but eventually the reader would realize that listening to a bad album is still far more enjoyable than reading a bad review.