The Lumineers, by The Lumineers

I’d heard the song “Ho Hey” on the radio or maybe on Pandora and it was somewhat catchy. When I saw The Lumineers for sale on Amazon I picked it up hoping the rest of the tracks would be as good. The rest of the tracks weren’t as good.

This album is folksy and reminds me a little of a Mumford and Sons record, just not as good. The music on this record is good and I think these guys could make one hell of an instrumental folk album if they put their minds to it. It’s the singing that kills this whole record for me.

It seems like the singer is playing that part of a deep and soulful singer but his voice betrays his lack of life experience. Songs like the one on this record really need someone who has lived through something they can draw on to inject emotion into the lyrics. The singer sounds like he’s fresh out of college and got into a band so he could get laid. The vocals are insincere and that ruins everything.

I’d give the record 2 out of 5 stars for the quality of the backing bank, but overall the record is crap.

My Head Is An Animal by Of Monsters and Men

Picking up My Head Is An Animal was a pretty good antidote for the bad luck I had with The Lumineers. This is the first record from Icelandic indie pop band “Of Monsters and Men”, and it has a great folksy feel to it.

The vocals are pleasant, the music is performed well and the production quality of the record is top notch. After listening to the album from start to finish a couple of times, I didn’t hear any tracks that stand out. All the songs are equally great.

I listen to music in two ways. Sometimes I listen to complete albums, and sometimes I shuffle a huge playlist of individual songs that I like. There’s not a song on this record that wouldn’t sound great randomly popping up in the shuffle, but I’ll be listening to it as a whole.

My Head Is An Animal deserves 3.5 out of 5 stars and I’d recommend it to anyone who just enjoys good music. I’ll be looking forward to more from this great young band.

Lights by Ellie Goulding

Lights by Ellie Goulding is a straight up synthpop record. I bought this one on a whim after listening to a preview of the title track. Of the three records I’m reviewing today, this is hands-down the best.

Ellie Goulding has a sweet voice and every song on this album sounds like it was crafted to make the best use of it. The title track definitely has a catchy hook, and I especially enjoyed “This Love (Will Be Your Downfall)”, “Under The Sheets” and “The Writer”. But even with a handful of stand out tracks there are no “filler tracks” on Lights. After five or six listens, I find myself just liking this album more and more.

Musically, it’s full of great hooks over solid beats. Knowing what I know about music production (not that much) it’s easy to see that a lot of production hours went into making this record really shine and it paid off.

For me, this record is going to get a lot of play and five or six of the tracks will make their way into the big shuffle mix in my iTunes.

I give this record a solid 4 out of 5 stars. It’s worth buying if you like good pop music.