Edward Sharpe is not "stomp clap hey ho" music
The song “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes has recently been the subject of intense online discourse. As a result, the internet has concluded that it is both “the worst song ever made” and emblematic of the annoying “stomp clap hey ho” subgenre that emerged from that same era.
Both points, however, are wrong. The song is very good, just overexposed. But more importantly, as it was so eloquently put in Garbage Day:
This is NOT “stomp clap hey ho indie,” as I’ve seen users on X claim. This is obviously closer to recession-era folk or folk punk, which came years before. It was smellier and annoying in a totally different way. “Stomp clap hey ho indie,” which arrived around 2011-2012, was made by Mormons, midwesteners that were functionally Mormon, or British nepo babies and it was explicitly written to cash in on the need for Silicon Valley Keynote background music or plantation weddings where all the drinks are served in mason jars. Bands like Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros were involved with dangerously insane cults, hung out with people who ate trash and tattooed their dogs, and made songs that sounded like they were written by preschool teachers suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Thank you!!
This is a bullseye. 🎯
I used to call this genre sole music as it had everything to do with the sole of your shoe and nothing to do with soul music. But I guess we’ve all decided to go with “stomp clap hey ho” or whatever because everybody is too homophonophobic. Fine.
But remember, “Home” was released in 2009 and “stomp clap hey ho” didn’t really start peaking until 2012 when, in basically one year, we got “Little Talks” – Of Monsters and Men, “Ho Hey” – The Lumineers, “I Will Wait” – Mumford & Sons, and “It’s Time” – Imagine Dragons.
People remember that these band were the true flag bearers of this sound, but they forget how many other artists wandered off into this genre.
Like, remember this song?
And that guy from American Idol?
Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional tried a rebrand:
Even The Boss flirted, albeit with a little more grit and authenticity:
And yet, now the genre is pretty much extinct. You’d think that with all that stomping they would have left a bigger footprint. ⚑
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