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Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros


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i have a hard time getting over the fact that he was the dude in Ima Robot, so i find his faux-hippie deal a bit much, but i dig some of their songs.

 

however, Home was one of the more overplayed songs last year here locally, to the point where i get annoyed whenever i hear it now.

 

the Twin Cities are their biggest market in the entire country by a wide margin, and as a result they're playing here in June (w/ Dawes thankfully) and again in August, and played here 3-4x last year.

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i've always said they remind me of the Polyphonic Spree fronted by Johnny Cash (or at least he wants to be vocally)

 

I definitely get a Polyphonic vibe from them. They are playing the Osheaga festival in Montreal this year too so I may go see them there.

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I'm not familiar with any of their stuff other than Home. But I love that song. I need to check out more of their stuff.

Ibid.

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I discovered this band last summer. Love the CD. I've heard lots of tracks on satellite radio over the past year. The current one they're playing is Carried On.

 

Maybe it's all a fake personality on the part of Alexander, but I love the music nonetheless. (I have not heard his former band.)

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  • 8 months later...
Home was one of the more overplayed songs last year here locally, to the point where i get annoyed whenever i hear it now.

Definitely, when I was living up in MN that was played all the time.

 

I think their stuff is okay, but it didn't really hook me and once it started getting overplayed I lost interest.

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  • 2 years later...

Interestingly, I just finished watching their ACL show about an hour ago (I'm woefully behind on the DVR).  I've been listening to their stuff ever since the first record, and I very much enjoy hearing them.  The songs are plenty catchy.  However, I don't enjoy watching them--the stage show always feels so mannered, so calculated, so affected.  It feels increasingly inauthentic to me, fraudulent in a way.

 

(I followed up the Edward Sharpe viewing with the Alabama Shakes ACL, and the juxtaposition only intensified my reaction; the obvious sincerity of Alabama Shakes threw into sharp relief the insincerity of Edward Sharpe.)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Interestingly, I just finished watching their ACL show about an hour ago (I'm woefully behind on the DVR).  I've been listening to their stuff ever since the first record, and I very much enjoy hearing them.  The songs are plenty catchy.  However, I don't enjoy watching them--the stage show always feels so mannered, so calculated, so affected.  It feels increasingly inauthentic to me, fraudulent in a way.

 

(I followed up the Edward Sharpe viewing with the Alabama Shakes ACL, and the juxtaposition only intensified my reaction; the obvious sincerity of Alabama Shakes threw into sharp relief the insincerity of Edward Sharpe.)

 

The inauthenticity of Edward Sharpe I always took as intentional.

Alex Ebert is doing a commedia del'arte thing...it's all a part of a greater performance. The messianic Edward Sharpe and his band of musical hippies. Very contrived but purposefully so...the music being so catchy simply adds to the picture for me.

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The inauthenticity of Edward Sharpe I always took as intentional.

Alex Ebert is doing a commedia del'arte thing...it's all a part of a greater performance. The messianic Edward Sharpe and his band of musical hippies. Very contrived but purposefully so...the music being so catchy simply adds to the picture for me.

 

I never quite knew what to think of them until I saw the documentary of them on the train with Mumford and Old Crow ("Big Easy Express"). I thought they were the best part of that wonderful film. Their energy and pure love of each other and their music is really infectious! I actually had the opposite experience then Beltman; I always found their CD's lacking until I saw them live. Now I find their cd's REALLY lacking compared to the energy they have live.

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