#ophiela

The Lumineers are an alternative to folk-rock band that formed in Denver, Colorado. The Lumineers are made up of two people. Wesley Schultz, who is the vocalist and the guitarist. The other member is Jeremiah Fraites who plays the drums and the piano. The band actually started writing and performing in Ramsey, New Jersey. Neyla Pekarek was another vocalist and cellist that joined the band in 2010, however, she has since left the band in 2018. 

When I was in high school, I felt obligated to listen to hip-hop and rap a lot. I still listen to hip-hop and rap often, but not as often as I used to. In high school every Friday the topic of discussion amongst my friends would be about sports, new music that dropped, what we’re doing that weekend, etc. Typical points of discussion that high school kids talk about. When we would talk about new music that dropped, it was always about hip-hop and rap albums. That’s just the era we’re in. I’m not complaining about it, because I still listen to it too. I just felt like no one would talk about or listen to other genres of music in high school. As a senior in college now, especially at a giant school like Rutgers, everyone is unique in their own way and everyone listens to different types of music. Coming to Rutgers, joining a fraternity, and living with housemates from different places, opened my eyes to different types of music. Such as alternative music and bands like The Lumineers, Kings of Leon, Vance Joy, Hozier, etc. 

After our discussion about folk-pop music last week, I was inspired to do my album review on The Lumineers. On Apple Music, the album “The Lumineers” by, ironically, The Lumineers is categorized as an alternative album. I heavily got into alternative music over the past six months. The reason why I got into it and like it so much now is that alternative music can make you feel all different types of emotions. 

With “The Lumineers,” listening to that album again made me feel some type of way. I felt all sorts of different feelings listening to it. There were certain ways in which the guitar was rifted that made me feel happy and excited and wanted to sing it at the top of my lungs. Songs like “Ho Hey” and “Stubborn Love” made me feel that way. There were also certain songs that made me feel like I was in my bag. Songs like “Dead Sea” and “Flowers In Your Hair” would put me in sort of a “downer” mood. Hannah Spencer of Contact Music described the song “Dead Sea” as “a flavor of what Kings of Leon may sound like if they went acoustic.” They all are those types of songs that you can sing along to. I understand that the folk-rock scene seems watered down and unoriginal because of the number of writers, science, and engineering that goes into these songs. A user on Sputnik Music says he felt it was “too manufactured, too...artificial.” Which is understandable. A lot of folk-rock songs have similar styles to each other. However, for me, a good album is one that either gets me to sing along, play the air guitar along, or just gets my head bopping. That’s what The Lumineers did for me with their debut album.

Sources:

https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/49046/The-Lumineers-The-Lumineers/