I’ve written a couple of times this week about how the internet has changed the way we experience music — big newsflash there, I know.
Today’s clip is another wonderful example.
As a promotion for Bono’s ONE campaign, Elvis Costello teamed up with Mumford & Sons to perform a mash-up of Bruce Springsteen and Woody Guthrie. This may well have happened in a pre-YouTube era, but would I have seen it?
I don’t know if it’s cool to like Mumford & Sons now, or if they’ve already moved on to overplayed and overrated.
I remember when Coldplay was the hippest band around and then a year or too later they were the punchline of a “You know how I know you’re gay?” joke in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I have the feeling that Mumford & Sons is on the brink of that conversion.
I’ve gotten really bad about posting reviews on this site. I’m finding that if I don’t sit down and force out a review the day after I see a movie, for example, it might take me months to get around to it.
That poses an even bigger problem for albums. I don’t feel ready to review an album until I’ve had a chance to listen to it in full at least four or five times, so any notion of striking while the fire is hot is out the window.
I bought Mumford & Sons’ debut album, Sigh No More, a day or two after their stirring performance at this year’s Grammys. Apparently many other people did the same thing, because the band leaped into the top five on iTunes and Amazon.com and made a great showing on the Billboard charts that week. That’s one of the fun things about the Grammys… the way it can launch a career based on the power of a single performance.
Meet Me In Montauk 