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The Brits: Why Do People Hate Mumford And Sons?

by David Hillier
20 February 2013 39 Comments

They've sold millions of albums and got the Americans onside. Now they just need to win back their fans over here...

Mumford and Sons got a great reception when they released their first album in 2009. Fast forward to now and suddenly they are cast as the spawn of Cowell in the eyes of most of those that originally embraced them. What have these agreeable chaps who sing about love and other nice stuff done in the intervening period to invoke everyone’s ire?

They sold shitloads of records, won Grammies and made America love them, that’s what.

I wrote a review of that album, ‘Sigh No More’, when it was released; the jist of this was they made nice enough tunes that didn’t have loads in the way of legs. I stand by that statement. Mumford are alright, certainly not bad. They’d probably be good at a festival if you disengaged the bit of your brain that said: “I so wish we were listening to Frank Ocean right now.”

This derision to them can be attributed to a condition known as Coldplay-it is, which is fitting because if Mumford continue on their current trajectory they could reasonably aspire to look Martin and Sons in the eye as equals soon.  It was A Rush Of Blood To The Head and ‘Clocks’ that solidified Coldplay’s status and ensured they would be more than just that ‘yellow band’, before they reached true ubiquity with X+Y. With Mumford you can read Babel and ‘I Will Wait’, and who knows what to come in the future.

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The trend of knocking a band down once they’re huge them is nothing knew and God knows we’ve all been guilty of it.  Maybe I’m getting old though, but I just can’t be bothered anymore. It’s boring. If you like something, just like it and get on with it. That’s not to say Liam Gallagher’s comment that they “look like they’ve got nits” wasn’t funny, but knocking the people at the top- especially when you’re in Beady Eye- seems the sort of neanderthal attitude that should be dispensed with by the time your kids are out of nappies.

Maybe it all comes down to identity.  Arctic Monkeys have consistently sold records (not so many in America, mind) but they’ve been pretty immune to back-biting, even when they’ve been putting out so-so albums.  They don’t “look like posh farmers with banjos” though-thanks Jake Bugg- and have always seemed a bit mouthy and tough, as well as articulate.  Matt Helders could probably beat you up, and if he couldn’t he’d get Josh Homme to wade in.

Mumford always come across as dreadfully nice in a dreadfully earnest way.  They look like they’d have trouble in a ruck with Union J, though they could probably take them in a looking-emotively-down-the-camera competition.

Of course, it could all come down to people genuinely thinking they’re bad, which is fair enough.  But in reality there’s a lot of bands on this planet making exponentially worse music than Mumford and Sons, who don’t face the same shower of shit because they’ve had the good grace to not sell millions of albums.  Either way, Mumford are only going to get bigger and will probably headline Glasto in June, so you might as well get used to them.

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image descriptionCOMMENTS

Dave lee 12:16 pm, 20-Feb-2013

I'm not someone who turned on the band once they made it big, I despised them from the off. Mumford and Sons are for people too stupid or too scared to listen to the Pogues.

Pedro 12:25 pm, 20-Feb-2013

I agree with Dave. They are shit and always have been. Oh look, another banjo in a weird Irish twang with another stupid bloody dress code theme

Andy 12:48 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Who liked them in the beginning? Who? Who?????

robin lee 1:34 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Q- The Brits: Why Did It Become Cool To Hate Mumford And Sons?.....A- cos theyre shit. same as coldplay and a fuckload of other insipid boring bland pissy panted veggie twats. its nowt to do with them being popular, its to do with them being shit. and anyone who bought their pr is a bell-end. they dont actually dress like that, like fucking morris dancers going to a car boot sale, no fucker in their right mind does unless theyre in panto. theyre a fucking joke. now every sad bastard retard is walking round in fucking 'antiqued' boots and waxed moustaches and rolled up brown trousers. looking and sounding like cunts. one day these people are going to look at photos of themselves an cringe. sad scruffy spastics.

dan lewis 1:48 pm, 20-Feb-2013

it's never been 'cool' to dislike them. they're disliked because they write endlessly awful songs. i've never come closer to punching a radio than when 'the mumfords' are on. and, besides, if it's good enough for this man, it's good enough for me: http://thequietus.com/articles/05129-mark-e-smith-blasts-bottles-mumford-sons

Max Bullitt 1:55 pm, 20-Feb-2013

I'm not the worlds greatest Mumford fan, it's pleasant enough in the background kind of way. I am however a fan of slashing the faces of self important arseholes like Dave Lee, Pedro, Andy and Robin Lee above....Come here I'm going to cut your cunting face you big headed bell ends.

robin lee 2:00 pm, 20-Feb-2013

ok Max I will gladly come there. where are you, exactly? something tells me that you will not say....

Ron Hardnut 2:18 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Who's this 'robin lee' bloke anyway? You can just tell he dresses in an identikit Casual Connoisseur costume with one of those tit-end wooly hats like every other fucker who wasn't there in the old days.

Scott 2:45 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Mumford and Sons are doing nothing The Bluebells weren't doing 25 years ago, and they were pish as well.

Dave Lee 2:55 pm, 20-Feb-2013

I agree with Maxx Bullitt. He seems like a reasonable type. For a Mumfords fan, anyway.

Billy Morrison 3:55 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Robin Lee sums up my opinion more concisely and politely than I might have put it.

robin lee 4:05 pm, 20-Feb-2013

cheers billy, glad I could be of service

Steve Bradley 4:44 pm, 20-Feb-2013

I have been trying to think of a concise, yet eloquent, way to describe my thoughts about M&S. After much deliberation I came up with the following prose... "C**ts"

Markxist 5:19 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Meh, I can take or leave 'em. They haven't done anything truly offensive to me, but then again they haven't done anything amazing either. Like Dave Lee and Scott says, there are other better bands doing that kind of thing out there, but with proper balls in the case of The Pogues. It's the same with all these tweenies into Muse. FFS, grow a pair and actually purchase some prog rock if you want some 9 min operatic about spaceships, imps and wicked businessmen.

Russ 7:48 pm, 20-Feb-2013

I can't summon up the interest or enthusiasm to hate them. I don't think I've even heard one of their songs. Which one is Mumford and which ones are the sons? And where's Mrs Mumford?

Russ 7:49 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Oh, hang on ... is Mumford and Sons the name of their Barber Shop?

davis 8:19 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Mumford : "Jeeves, fetch the banjo, we're going to the vicar's tea party dressed as raggledy-taggledy minstrels." Jeeves : "How very quaint, sir"

robert 8:29 pm, 20-Feb-2013

mumford and sons come from a bunch of super rich families that only got to where they are because their families pumped hundreds of thousands into a relentless tv ad campaign that no ordinary band could do. end of

anon 9:24 pm, 20-Feb-2013

you're confusing hate with not giving a shit, they are just so meh.

Meh-itis 10:37 pm, 20-Feb-2013

@robert, it's like Keane all over again...

russ 10:53 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Right, just seen them on the telly. Sussed it. Their main mistake was not growing beards and going for the Fleet Fox hippy ruse.

Markxist 11:47 pm, 20-Feb-2013

Ooh I do like Fleet Foxes though

Jimmy James Jameson 1:09 am, 21-Feb-2013

"mongoloid Irish folk band" mark e smith. Hard to disagree.

Chris Nelson 7:39 pm, 3-Mar-2013

I like them a lot. I can understand not liking them for whatever reason, but the bile that gets spouted is ridiculous. Don't like them? Don't listen to them.

Matt 8:08 pm, 3-Mar-2013

anon: "you're confusing hate with not giving a shit, they are just so meh." this.

Chev Chelios 12:52 pm, 11-Mar-2013

pedro and robin lee really have hit the nail on the head.

Lucy_von 4:10 pm, 11-Mar-2013

Loving the Mark E Smith quote.

Ras Trent 5:02 am, 15-Mar-2013

Who's Mark E Smith??

Colonial Clink 3:40 am, 28-Mar-2013

Because their music is more homogenized crap and they are ripping off the Fleet Foxes which is a much better band.

Blake Carrington 2:50 pm, 29-Mar-2013

Perhaps it's because 1.There's only one real Mumford and that's Bob from Rentaghost 2. They are soulless musical Mogodon and 3. They are epitomise everything that is bad about "Cardigan Cunt Chic"

Maggie 3:37 pm, 2-Apr-2013

Seem's like all of you hater's need to take a good long hard sh**

Joyce 2:21 am, 6-Apr-2013

Seriously though, they're shit. Call me when they write a song that doesn't involve a sudden drop of crazy banjo playing.

Robin 3:08 pm, 8-Apr-2013

I am also tired of the lazy argument that Mumford and Sons are hated because they got big. They are hated because they suck and they and their fans pretend they some transcendent band.

CraigLondon 10:49 pm, 30-Jun-2013

I never liked them from off.Always sounded like a load of pikeys doing country/cider ad tunes.They deserve to be at Cashtonbury with all the other twats that go there now suppose

FergusLondon 7:45 am, 1-Jul-2013

They're the music industry's answer to theatre's Punchdrunk: Self-satisfied beardy-cunty-bollocks who believe their own myth.

Mark Ramsden 10:59 am, 1-Jul-2013

Posh Wurzels. Ooh ah. Ok Ya!

Joe Thrush 11:56 pm, 16-Sep-2013

Mumford are the musical equivalent of a banjo playing squirrel gnawing slowly into your skull, and the sooner they piss off the better. They're not like Coldplay, they're far worse.

Joseph Perez 5:39 am, 26-Apr-2014

Well ...... I like Them .

Lizzy 3:20 pm, 20-Jul-2014

I happen to like Mumford and Sons thank you very much. Sure there music may not be as good as other music or maybe you just dont like it but dont disrespect them.

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