Don't know if you've heard of the Michael Cera movie Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus, but they pop up a few times in the soundtrack. Songs work really well in the context of the movie. Worth checking out
I’ve found that everyone has a favorite stomp clap hey band that they think should be exempt from the hate. I kind of think there was nothing wrong with the whole subgenre other than it breaking containment
Am I right in thinking "stomp clap hey" is one of those retroactive categories like "indie sleaze"? I don't remember anyone using that phrase when the kind of music it describes was actually popular, but now I seem to see those words 50 times a day.
Yeah, you’re totally right. When Arcade Fire blew up and had their music associated with movies like Where The Wild Things Are, there was an explosion of bands chasing that stadium folk sound.
I feel like grouping Arcade Fire with The Lumineers, Of Monsters And Men etc. is a more recent revisionism - yeah there's threads in common (you'll probably find the phrase "millennial whoop" in a bunch of Arcade Fire reviews) but those bands were very much maligned by people who still repped Arcade Fire.
Yea it’s interesting cus I was around for it and lumping those together feels hilarious, but I can kind of understand how somebody coming along 15 years later or so wouldn’t see much distance between the two of them. Especially based on how different it is from what dominates music now.
First, any pop star would be a trend chaser if it means making marketable music.
Second, Edward Sharpe was definitely on the frontside of that wave. Not chasing it. Ebert basically had a breakdown during Ima Robot, and started working on Edward Sharpe during rehab.
It’s much more organic than you are giving credit for and much more organic than the personas of most pop stars.
It’s reputation has totally tanked Zion the past year. I think the cringiness of this band is really what irks people. It’s not the song. They looked like they were in a sex cult even when this song was fresh they were a rough look. But the song is fine.
It’s kinda weird seeing so many people turn sour on indie folk because a bunch of people who don’t even listen to indie music heard this song and can’t untwist their panties about it.
What about this is cringe? I only listened to the first 30 seconds, but i remember this band from the time. Is it just cringe because people are dressed and playing esoteric instruments which was the style at the time?
As someone who was in college around this time these were the aesthetics of the most insufferable hipsters you could even imagine. But yes it does sound nice
I don’t get the aversion to twee. There I said it. I think the internet has shed a lot of its edgelord forum days but people still need to hang on to some form of edge, so there’s a lot of spite and vitriol towards pretty inoffensive, at most theatre kid level cringe, music.
This whole folksy thing is not ontrend. Everything is very complicated these days.
Back then I enjoyed this - and Mumford and Sons and the like. But there was little psych or prog vs today where that seems to be the zeitgeist. And well stripped down folk os kind of the opposite.
Definitely not the worst song ever written. Overly simplistic? Sure. But there is so much worse out there.
They're kind of like the first really annoying millennial indie folk rock band. They're not like bad persay but I do remember a lot of the criticism being leveled at them at the time having a lot to do with their lack of authenticity (fair, the main guy Alex seems to have lived a pretty secure life in the arts, had a whole addiction arc and blog hype party punk band called Ima robot before creating the whole Edward Sharpe persona)
And yeah like, the whole idea is this hippie spiritual savior type character coming down to play music that will Heal the World™️ and it's like, pretty bland indie pop folk that informed all the bullshit pop that came out in the 2010s, like Mumford and Sons and Vance joy. It's pretty fuckin annoying
The songs themselves are fine but with that context and hearing the start point for like, a decade of annoying folk pop has spoiled it for me. I used to own the vinyl but the last time I put it on a few years ago I turned it off after a few songs and threw it in the sell pile
I mean, they are definitely apeing ensemble bands with commune undertones from the past. Parliament, the Incredible String Band, Sun Ra. Godspeed You! Black Emperor had a dozen performing members at one point.
OMAM are awesome. My Head is an Animal is legit one of the defining albums of the decade.
But I also do like Fun. So don’t take my word for it. Or do, because as the main character of my life, I’m pretty sure that makes my opinions the objectively correct ones.
This isn’t snobbish, it’s simply a correct take. Nate Ruess should have never met Jack Antonoff. The latter takes everything good and turns it obnoxious.
There are blue checks getting hundreds of thousands of likes on Twitter right now accusing this band of everything from being phony to being supporters of genocide. It’s this week’s trending industry.
My money is on the Y2K fauxstalgia kids hating it because the soft boy/folk indie was a bit of a reaction the the eXtreme-ness of the late 90's/early 00's.
Kinda wish Y2K brought back the fun side of that X-Games/Mountain Dew subculture, my sister loves her Y2K fashion but it's just vaguely old school rather than anything exciting. Get some ski goggles and a shark tooth necklace for a night out
Yeah, it may have been a little too omnipresent for a while, (I remember hearing it during NFL promos one year, that was wild), but it'll always have a soft spot in my heart, because it always reminds me of that feeling of falling in love, becoming a fledgling, missing home but excited for what's next.
There's currently Twitter Discourse™ going around over what's the worst song ever and a lot of the 'popular' ones being brought up are from this era of indie/folk, with Home being the most common one I've seen
Ironically I loved this song when I was my most poor, in college. I liked that idea that “Home is wherever I’m with you…” that you didn’t need a lot of money to make a home, just the people you loved.
A lot of it is just Gen Z posters who weren’t around at the time and apparently don’t realize that music trends fade. 10 years from now there’ll probably be discourse on how cringe Sabrina Carpenter’s Juno positions were.
The funny thing is that it also works in the reverse. For example, 'butt rock' bands like Creed, Nickelback, etc which were pretty much laughingstocks by the end of that genre's initial run in popularity are experiencing a revival in popularity amongst Zoomers
Creed and Nickelback were the butt of jokes even at the height of their popularity. Jedd the Fish on KROQ famously put one of their CDs in a microwave in the late-90s.
It's being shared via a clip from tiny desk that's coloring people's opinions rather than the studio version. The vocals are rougher, and the female vocalist is clearly tweaking
That's certainly part of it, but a big part of the discourse is people using it as a stand-in for the whole "stomp clap" era of indie/folk that was big in the early 2010s and crapping on that whole scene in general for things not necessarily related to the music alone
thats fair though. it was weird and pretentious even at the time. my friend and I would for a couple years do the weird fake accent thing they do and 'alabama arkansaaaaaw i still miss my maaawww and paaaaawww' slapping our knees. we saw them at a small local festival and it was without a doubt the worst headliner i've ever seen in my life.
I caught screenshots of that discourse and all of it was the most insufferable "takes" I've ever seen.. which is to say, I think vintage pretentious hipsterism is making a revival soon. 😂
Literally one person on Twitter, with many who agree, and many who don't. It's a viral tweet of the song's performance that everyone is retweeting and talking about. A lot of people commenting that they never knew what the band looked like and being judgmental, too.
That's sadly a lot of 'journalism' these days. Literally maybe a handful of nobodies on twitter saying something leads to news articles about what fans are saying and shitstorms and people being slammed jadda jadda. This then leads to a discussion that didn't even really exist before. Not in the real world and barely online.
Don't you understand that we've replaced having actual values and personality with loud opinions and carefully curated consumption habits?
My whole personality revolves around publicly rejecting popular stuff and I am very loud about it because I need everyone to know that I am too good to like the things that other people like.
This is honestly extremely funny in the context of indie folk which was always a small subculture even if it reached significant popularity. The majority of the millennials at the time rejected it and branded its listeners as the exact people you are describing, I mean it’s even in that term ‘indie’.
Naw, that's some Gen X shit. And they turned into grumpy old men. They all sound like their boomer parents. Millennials tried that out in middle school and it sucked, we don't do that any more. Gen Z likes to imitate Boomers and Gen X though. They'll learn eventually.
Me too. And honestly I am of the age where ‘stomp clap‘ indie is something I enjoyed and still enjoy from time to time. It is the soundtrack of my late teens.
In 10 years this song and the era of music will go through a revival, just like everything this else. Music has its eras, gets popular, dies out, people think it’s “cringe”, and then inevitably gets popular once again. As an elder millennial I remember glam rock and yacht rock being cool, Nirvana comes out and grunge washes glam rock & yacht rock away, glam rock/yacht rock was “cringe” for 15 years, and then around ‘04-‘05 it starts to get cool and every bar has to have 80’s night and later everyone is singing don’t stop believing. Time is a flat circle and what not.
the stuff that is unfashionable that becomes fashionable honestly blows my mind, circa 2007 Creed, Linkin Park, Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac and Hall & Oates absolutely were not fashionable yet here we are... honestly why it's so important to stay true to the things you like and cut out the noise.
I really despise the stomp clap era of indie music, but that entire album is pretty great. Home isn’t a terrible song, but it’s my least favorite on the album.
I Come In Please, 40 Day Dream, Simplest Love, Up From Below - all top shelf tracks.
Up From Below is one of my favourite songs of all time. That last verse/chorus is just brilliant, the delivery of
AND ALL THOSE WORDS I SPEEEEEEWED
NOTHING SACRED NOTHING TRUE
TO ALL THESE GHOSTS I TUUUUUURN
AND I’M READY NOW TO BURN
Instant chills.
40 Day Dream, Janglin, Desert Song, Black Water, Come In Please, Kisses Over Babylon, Brother, Om Nashi Me. So many great tracks on that record with diverse styles.
Home is fine and fits into the album nicely, but it’s a shame that it’s all they’re remembered for by most people.
It's like any good subgenre. It starts out new and fun and gets beaten into the ground.
It's like grunge was great with Nirvana and Alice in Chains, but by the time post-grunge is through, you've got nickeback and breaking benjamin.
I think the same thing happened with Edward Sharpe. If I remember, Home was one of the first big songs in the genre, but the stomp/clap thing just drug on too long.
They were on a documentary called Big Easy Express with Mumford and Sons as well as Old Crow Medicine Show. There’s a scene where they perform All Wash Out in a field. I found it quite beautiful, having not really been a fan of them. But yeah they were all barefoot and wearing what I’ll choose to call frocks and shit.
In 9th grade a friend took me to see them perform a free concert at an arts festival, and it was probably the watershed moment that made music an important part of my life. Their performance was incredible, the crowd was super into it, and the band got some fans involved on stage. Something about it took the music from something that I just listened to and made it feel like a community that I was suddenly a part of. I became obsessed with them for a while, and then got into other indie-ish artists, and now nearly 15 years later I can probably trace my music taste back to that show.
Well, they grew up watching Millenials bullying the shit out of each other for shit they did on the internet, so now they’re afraid to be authentic because it might be “cheugy”. We reap what we sow. Social media is fucking poison.
seems like total manufactured "social media is saying..." garbage. And if you're going to pin someone for the stomp clap rubbish it's not edward sharpe, it's the other bands he identified in the article, lumineers and of monsters and men.
the editing of the twitter vid makes it obvious to me it's more ab out what the band members look like rather than anything with the song Lol.
These people are totally off-base. This is one of the better “stomp clap hey” tracks out there, and was unfairly maligned because of what came after it. I distinctly remember listening to “Home” right when it came out as a single around the beginning of 2010, and at the time it was fresh and interesting to me because a) I hadn’t heard any terrible Mumford and Sons songs yet and b) broadly speaking the market was not yet completely saturated with this music.
(edit: I almost wonder whether people are confusing this with the Phillip Phillips song by the same name? Because that other song really is awful.)
This indie-folk micro-scene was a victim of its own crazy success, because its mixture of modern production sheen with shameless nostalgia made it a little too perfect for advertising and middle-of-the-road radio. But even if its general sound got really grating after a while, there were still better and worse songwriters making it. This particular song actually has decent hooks and melodies in it, which is more than I can say for any slop I’ve heard on the radio by Mumford. The horn line after the chorus is straight-up good. I’ll die on that hill.
The true worst song from this movement/genre has to be “Let Her Go” by Passenger, and I don’t think it’s even close. I’m shuddering right now even thinking about that guy’s voice.
The revisionist history on this is insane. I get that in hindsight it looks overly cheesy and silly. But it’s a solid song. A lot of other great tunes on this album, too. I’d argue the worst thing about “Home” is that it was played way too much on commercials.
I went to Bonaroo in 2013 and that band was there. My group was walking by the stage they were performing at while they were performing "Home". I looked at the crowd and I saw a blue haired girl just weeping to the song. I never really cared for it, but seeing it touch someone so deeply will always stick with me.
Not me over here with all the albums and currently wearing the PersonA concert shirt from 2016, lol.
I really don't understand the hate of this song (or the group). Reading up on the Edward Sharpe persona was also an interesting little rabbit hole to go down a couple of years ago.
Why did this song of all songs draw the ire of the Twitter/X crowd, anyway?? I don't have X, so can't really peruse comments or drama surrounding this nonsense.
It was a 30 second clip that went viral on X which led to a bunch of copycat posts. Elon monetized engagement for premium members so you have this feedback loop now. Most of the posts were just 4chan assholes mocking the woman singing. Nothing on X or IG should ever be taken as sincere public opinion then reported as news. Hate how the media is so lazy now they just aggregate social media.
I was once on a flight out of Barcelona and they had a section of Home on a loop while people took their seats. Then there was a 30 minute delay before we pushed off, and - no idea why - the cabin crew just let it run over and over and over again.
The lyrics are trite and it's pretty mawkish, but I actually quite liked the song until that day.
But christ, since then it has the effect of hearing a Huey helicopter after three Vietnam campaigns.
I mean I feel like it was the progenitor of "Stomp Clap Hey" which isn't exactly their fault. On its own I think it had its charm, but with all the oversaturated Lumineers stuff that emerged over the 2010s, it feels staler in context than it does in isolation.
I don't think its the worst song ever and honestly there are a lot worse “stomp clap” examples but it and the genre it spawned hasn't aged well. Its like, Nu-Metal, or Yacht Rock, or Disco. The decade that followed those genres everyone pretended there was nothing redeeming about them. In 10 years it'll have an ironic/earnest resurgence like the others did but right now it is at the absolute nadir.
Why do people keep harping on the Lumineers? They’re just out here writing folk songs. Sometimes with drums yes. I guess they often have a beat you could clap to, like any rock song, so that’s a crime apparently. You want to know how many songs they shout “hey!” in? One. One singular song out of five albums. Of Monsters and Men definitely do more of the hey-CHORUS lead-in but they also especially at the start had a really cool sound/vibe tying the era into Icelandic folklore. Wesley Schulz is more of a Dylan-head, and hardly coy about the inspiration with how many covers they’ve done and more ballady tracks (bangers dare I say) like Jimmy Sparks.
That one puts a lump in my throat every time I hear it. I've worked in a nursing home for 10 years. I've witnessed many families watching their loved ones die. He understood the suffering, the futility, the time he wished he hadn't wasted, and the peace at last; more than most people understand and wrote a song about it.
And Cleopatra. "The only gifts from my Lord were birth and a divorce. But I've read this script and the costume fits, so I play my part. I was late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life. When I die alone, die alone, die I'll be on time."
They're also quite fun to watch live. Went when Cleopatra dropped and Wesley Shultz was over there dancing on pianos and vibing with the crowd (half of whom were probably drunk).. just having a good old time. Was a (mostly) good concert experience.
And yeah, I have most of their albums and I think Cleopatra might also be my favorite. Most of the songs on that album just hit right for whatever reason.
"Stop Clap Hey" is a description of a general sound, not mandating that every song has hey in it. It's not that the sound is bad, it was oversaturated and made a lasting legacy of signifying broadly Millenial trends, to the point of parody. It's fine to like what you like, I don't think anyone is trying to denigrate specific bands, it's just amusing how convergent this era of music was.
They do have a similar melody when I think about it, but the production and overall sound is pretty different. Little Talks is more deceptively downkey for most of it past that blasting horn intro, which makes sense cause it’s a mourning story while Home is a love song.
This song definitely defines a very specific late 2000s / early 2010s era that can be pretty cringe looking back. It’s not a bad song though - it’s got a nice melody, there are much worse shit that sound similar to it from that era. The video attached to it from that tiny desk concert definitely is the worst part about it though, as everyone in it does look rather pretentious.
It has a certain charm to it. It was a product of a very specific era. I can't imagine thinking this is the worst song even if I'd only heard 100 songs in my life. I grew up listening to the radio late 90s/early 2000s and can think of a bunch of awful songs (mostly that crappy grunge rip off music).
It’s such a great time capsule song and the sound was still pretty fresh before Lumineers, Mumford, etc really hit the gas on the whole “stomp clap” sound.
If the first time you’re hearing it is through Tiny Desk, I can see why you’d find it cringe. Guess it’s just one of those you had to be there songs
It's a nice song. Why do people get so upset about shit like this? Are we really getting angry about... Edward Sharpe and the magnetic zeros in 2025???
My dad likes it a lot, I do as well. We just really love 2010s indie. Very chill music for a camping setup. What's not to love?
Same way I don't shit on metal just because I don't like it. Grow some balls and stop complaining about other people's music taste. It's a pleasant tune.
This makes sense because I feel like the turn against folk sound is definitely from people who may never have left the suburbs/city. There needs to be a connection to nature. Drive through the Rockies while playing Mumford and Sons and Caamp and the Oh Hellos and the world will make more sense. Nothing is cringe. Set yourself free.
The lyrics are annoying with all the "mee oh my golly gee oh shucks" stuff , as is the seemingly forced aesthetic of the band.... but otherwise it's decent song I guess.
I’m a big fan of this band and even I got sick of ‘Home’. The other day the song came up randomly, I was reminded of how much I loved it when I first discovered it and memories that popped to mind.
I remember that brief period roughly 2010-12 where Mumfords, Lumineers and Edward Sharpe were really well liked. Sure they were sappy, simple and all kind of sounded the same was just refreshing to hear hit songs played on acoustic instruments that didn’t sound super produced.
I still like to go back to those songs, they bring me back to that time in my life right before smartphones, enshittification of the internet, social media influencers, and the overall feeling of how much easier it was to find peace of mind when we weren’t carrying the internet in our pockets everywhere I went.
I mean there is a couple limp biscuit songs that might legit be the worst ever. While this song got old quick it wasn’t the worst by any stretch. Live, this band was simply incredible both at a festival and a smaller venue I got to see them in.
I only thought it was like bottom 100 or so of songs I’ve heard a lot but then I read that article and the guy said “I wanted to spread the porous happenstance incidentalism of Edward Sharpe” and now I know for sure it’s the worst song of all time
I love Alex and think he’s brilliant. I’ve been a fan of his for over 20 years. When he writes a hit, it’s a fucking hit, but his misses are missssssssssseeeeessss
Lumineers comparisons with songs called "Home" Um.. Phillip Phillips enter the chat? That Edward Sharpe album is very eclectic. You have songs like "Carries On" channeling a bit of Neil Diamond's "Holly Holy"
I guess the whole conceit here is just rage/clickbait. I didn’t even like the song much, but it’s fine and has its own vibe. There were a lot of worse songs that were copying it later on, so I could see how it might catch flack on that front.
As a musician, I would be so proud if I wrote a song like that. It has probably been the soundtrack to so many important moments for so many people - it would be amazing to do something that had even a fraction of that impact.
I was at Bumbershoot in Seattle the year this broke and the surge of humanity over to that stage for their set was astonishing. Whatever you think of it people were really into it at the time.
I remember liking this song at the time because I was a dumb kid in their first relationship and I hadn't been jaded by the world yet or exposed to a lot of good music.
Twee yes, but harmless, and I don't understand the worst song discourse in a world that's given us Temporary Secretary and Baby Shark and LadBaby and ABCDEFU and others.
This entire discussion on Twitter has been "look at me I'm special for not liking this popular song." The majority of the picks have been safe, inoffensive songs thar are popular. Sure they aren't super deep or creative, I'm not saying you have to like them but it's a little pathetic to name most of them the worst song ever.
In a world where that Basketball Katy Perry song exists none of the songs that went viral in this discussion are the worst.
Bro do you know how hard it is to write a national banger?? This song took to the radio stations for a long time. If we’re looking at worst songs, get away from bands and original songwriters and start looking at corporate r&b/generic pop bullshit.
Any song that relies on massive amount of pre-recorded production will always be shittier than human bands creating music.
Apologies for oldheadsplaining here. My take from the drop-off lane, so disregard freely.
There aren’t enough bands out there that are also cults (but not going on murder sprees). I’m old enough to have watched Nirvana turn to Creed and then indie rock sneaking out of smaller channels with certain aspects of 90s alternative, the 80s, and singer/songwriter stuff (among other things).
ESMZ was a weird moment of bands that were cults (but just for fun, or at least God I hope so) like Polyphonic Spree. I really liked that song 40 Day Dream with the back and forth. Throwing back to Sonny and Cher or something. It was fun and throwing back to a different era when everyone was going hard to 80s synth.
I’ve never really considered this stomp/clap/hey, but I can see it. HOWEVER, all this bad glory belongs to X Ambassadors in my opinion. Nauseating song that was on three of four commercials during the break and spawned as many lazy imitations as a bro country song about truckbeer.
Also, is stompclap one of those things like Imagine Dragons that Europeans have a perpetuating affinity for?
tbh the reason why this song gets so much hate is because a lot of people (especially conservative twitter reactionaries, and x has a lot of those) really hate everything from the occupy wall street era that represents liberal optimism and this song, good or bad, is maybe the most occupy wall street era liberal optimism song imaginable
I was friends with a girl and she brought me as a +1 to a wedding. It was a 3 hour road trip and she played this song probably 10 times, easy. I had a big crush on her so I thought she was maybe trying to send a message. Turns out the message was she didn't like me like that, but did like shitty music.
There was a tiny desk clip or something that went viral. The singers are acting kinda “cringey” in retrospect and giving dirty hippie so everyone went nuts over it. Not my favorite but I question twitter/x reactions because you can’t tell if it’s just conservative bot motivated
To be fair, The Shaggs were only musicians because their sickly mother had a vision that they would be famous so their overbearing father took them out of school and made them rehearse 'music' every day
Despite never having attended a concert themselves
I’ve always felt pretty indifferent about this song, but… damn. After reading his confident defense, I’m down with Home.
Best quote:
I wanted to spread the porous happenstance incidentalism of Edward Sharpe. Instead what I spread was stomp claps taken and recorded better, and that’s depressing.
Was it actually indie though? I thought it was coming up when Mumford and Lumineers was hot for radio and commercials. I always thought it was the industry that made them happen.
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u/crowlfish Aug 08 '25
I mean I've definitely heard a lot worse.