What is bearded hipster music?

I don't think that Mumford & Sons were ever obscure enough to attract the 'bearded hipster'. They've always received negative (music-) press in the UK for:
a) being posh*: because a private education makes you inauthentic, okay?
b) affecting a 'folk voice' plus them banjos: because that really is inauthentic
c) being lyrically a little bit too heart-on-sleeve: because cynicism is way cooler
d) being overly literary in their references: because no-one likes a smart-****

Both Coldplay and Radiohead are guilty of most of the above; somehow Radiohead managed to rise above it but I'd advise them against introducing banjos.

Personally I think the Mumsters knocked out a few cracking tunes, albeit within a confined oeuvre.

* There's a growing backlash against posh types in the UK arts. I think the belief that the posh kids get the record deals and the acting gigs *because* they're posh is erroneous. While I'm sure family/school contacts do their prospects no harm, I'm think the underlying reason is that private schools have the staff, money, and time to truly allow children to follow their chosen path, whereas state schools are forced to concentrate on exam grades to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. The 'not having to worry about paying for the next meal' aspect helps too, of course, when you're in your early 20s without a 'proper job'.

 

The first hipster band?

 

Judging by pictures of them they don't even have beards...

 

I used to be into Radiohead but I somehow tired of them. Fleet Foxes don’t move me much but I absolutely love The War On Drugs while Father John Misty leaves me rather cold with his persona/satire thing. My face is smooth as a babys butt. I don’t know what I am. And I don’t care.

 

Isn't it anything played on a Crosley?

C'mon, someone was bound to say it and I stepped up!

 

1st thing I thought of:

 

Also 'Let Her Go' by Passenger, that song was everywhere for a good couple months.

 

Have to be ZZ Top...

 

Mumford and sons are not generally liked by hipsters despite the beards. Most wouldn't be seen dead listening to them (and have probably all shaved off their beards now anyway). This is despite the fact that many hipsters come from similar silver spoon-fed backgrounds as M & S.

Some of the vitriol might be due to their landed gentry background in opposition to the image they attempt to project. Then again, that might all be excusable if they were in any way musically interesting.

 

Bearded hipster music does not rock.. So it is not my cup of tea...

 

Hipster music comes and goes in a way, even if some bands have staying power. There's this short attention span and quest for the new stuff to be hip, dropping band names, having an interest in californian sunshine pop for a week, then on to peruvian streetcore polka for two more. It all seems superficial, not deep - like okay, now you have tools to check out bands very rapidly. It doesn't mean you really know them.

 

Not performed by bearded hipsters, necessarily, but I feel like these might be of their tastes. I like these acts to some degree:

The Do
Dan Deacon
Devendra Banhart
Sigur Ros

Check 'em out.

 

I remember when it was called Earnest Vest-Folk.

 

"Bearded hipster" is a tired trope at this point.

But regarding Mumford and Sons - I just think they're the logical mainstream conclusion to what happened about a decade ago, when there were indie artists who watched "The Last Waltz" and decided they wanted to rehash *that.*

 

Ironically enough, bebating the most accurate way to negatively describe music you don't like makes you sound like a bunch of hipsters.

 

It doesn't help that they're painfully earnest and po-faced.

I wonder when they'll follow Arcade Fire and make the turn from painfully earnest to painfully ironic and arch?

 

Or later on, "The New Sincerity".

 

Arcade Fire, Decemberists, Animal Collective - all made music that (IMO) was largely devoid of substance, hiding alternately behind cheery earnestness and affected posturing, at a time when bands really could have stepped up and reflected what was going in the world around them.

Also, if I went to a show and I saw that the lead singer had a floor tom set up next to the center microphone, it was going to be a long night.

 

.....another lame brained categorization to build walls.

 

I suppose this is only tangentially related (mustaches but no beards), but I can't resist:

 

Not sure I fully understand what a hipster is or isn't though and reading this thread I'm none the wiser. It seems that people have different ideas of what it means. Does it denote a t trust find baby with a too cool for school attitude or is it anyone who likes independent music? Is the word itself becoming meaningless in conveying a stereotype?

 

Also that tool was the first thing I thought of.

 

Grooming! Very important! Look at me clothes, the correct lap dog...the list goes on...

 

Perhaps you mean that bands should step up and reflect what was going on in THE WORLD AROUND YOU.
It's a big world out there.

 

All Mumford and Sons songs sound the same to me. Lots of strumming, very uninteresting rhythm, followed by a big, loud emotionally "resonant" chorus. And then that repeats.

Imagine Dragons songs seem to consist of very loud, boring drum beats followed by another loud, emotionally "resonant" chorus.

I can't stand either. I have no opinion on the hipster bit.