The pretenders

Like a lot of essentially cautious people, I like my music to take some risks, play with fire and damn the consequences. In truth, of course, most musicians are every bit as conservative as the rest of us: they do whatever it is they do and if it sells, they keep on doing it until they drop. Three small cheers, then, for Mumford & Sons, who with their recently released third album took a completely unexpected swerve away from the phony banjo-intensive folk that had made their name and their fortune, into the stadium rock’n’roll they have obviously always wanted to play. As may have been gently hinted at in previous columns, I developed a visceral and irrational loathing for their first two records, their tunelessness, their lead singer’s annoying voice and the whole construct’s utter falsity. Every record they made had the sound not of life lived but of other records listened to and faithfully duplicated.