Ever since my post from Tuesday, I haven’t been able to stop listening to Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros.
It’s funny how some music takes a while to really sink in and appeal. When I first heard their only full-length album to date, Up from Below, back in April, after it was gifted to me by a friend on my trip to southern California, I immediately heard some of the similarities to Arcade Fire that most people point out, and since I’m not an Arcade Fire fan, I brushed them off.
But my wife and son really took to the record, and so it was playing fairly regularly there for a while, and slowly but surely it grew on me. I started to notice all the things that distinguished Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros from Arcade Fire, most significantly that the former takes themselves WAY less seriously. Edward Sharpe has that lovely hippie sensibility that I love so much, and upon deeper listening sound more like a roaming band of hipster gypsies than some artsy-fartsy orchestral rock band.
I just can’t get enough of this song, even though I look at how many members there are in the band and feel like a hypocrite, given the comments I made about Okkervil River back in May.
How funky and fun! That IS a big band – I thought there was a bunch of fans on the stage!!! I love when musicians truly enjoy making music…or the drugs they’re on! Either way, they’re really fun!
Hi Colleen! Thanks for stopping by!
Hope you are doing well.