There’s a peculiar genre of hatred reserved for bands like The Lumineers. It’s not the outright vitriol you’d reserve for a truly offensive artist, nor is it the mild indifference that greets every other bedroom pop act flooding your Discover Weekly. No, this is something more specific: a side-eye disdain that operates at the intersection of cultural fatigue and personal insecurity. And it raises a question that feels as persistent as “Ho Hey” was in 2012—why does everyone seem to hate The Lumineers?
Folk Music Without the Revolution
To understand this hate, we first need to understand the space The Lumineers occupy in the cultural Venn diagram. Folk music, at its heart, was never supposed to be nice. Woody Guthrie didn’t slap a “This Machine Kills Fascists” sticker on his guitar to play softly in the background of a Subaru commercial. Folk music was protest music. It was supposed to make you uncomfortable, or at least remind you that the world is inherently flawed.
The Lumineers, by contrast, deliver folk with all the sharp edges sanded down. Their music isn’t about resistance; it’s about your feelings. Which is fine, except when it isn’t. “Ho Hey” became the soundtrack to a decade of wistful wedding montages and emotionally vague TV finales, and suddenly folk music felt less like a movement and more like a marketing tool. When folk music becomes the aural equivalent of a Pinterest board, it’s easy to understand why some people roll their eyes.
The Twee Aesthetic: Grit-Free and Gorgeous
The Lumineers are the band equivalent of a curated thrift shop—distressed but perfectly so. Wesley Schultz’s voice trembles just enough to sound vulnerable but never truly broken. Jeremiah Fraites’ percussion feels like a heartbeat, steady and predictable. The banjo twangs not too loudly, not too softly. It’s the sonic equivalent of a handcrafted wooden sign that reads “Live, Laugh, Love.”
For people who need their art to feel raw and authentic, this is an unforgivable sin. The Lumineers’ whole aesthetic can feel like a performance of authenticity rather than the real thing. It’s not just that they’re earnest—it’s that their earnestness feels like it was designed by an algorithm that knows exactly how to make you cry during the third act of a Netflix drama.
The Curse of Ubiquity
Part of the hate comes down to exposure. “Ho Hey” wasn’t just a hit; it was a cultural event. You couldn’t walk into a coffee shop, turn on a radio, or attend a wedding without hearing those two forlorn syllables: “Ho! Hey!” For people who like to think of themselves as cultural tastemakers, this was an immediate red flag. If your mom and your barista both love the same band, can that band still be cool?
The Lumineers became shorthand for the folk-pop wave that peaked in the early 2010s—a movement that included Mumford & Sons, Of Monsters and Men, and about 30 other bands with vaguely pastoral vibes. But while the genre itself was a passing trend, The Lumineers somehow stuck around. And nothing breeds contempt quite like refusing to fade into obscurity when your cultural moment has passed.
Hating The Lumineers Is a Personality Trait
But here’s the deeper layer to the disdain: hating The Lumineers is really about what they represent. If you hate The Lumineers, you’re signaling something. You’re signaling that you have taste, that you’re too discerning to fall for this polished version of folk music. It’s a way of saying, “I’m not like everyone else,” even though hating The Lumineers has itself become a cliché.
Ironically, The Lumineers aren’t doing anything wrong. Their music is pleasant. It’s catchy. It makes people feel things. But that’s exactly why some people can’t stand them. They’re too good at being unremarkable. They’re the soundtrack to the moments in life that are meant to feel special but ultimately aren’t. A first kiss that didn’t mean anything. A road trip that was more about the Instagram post than the actual journey.
The Lumineers, Unapologetically Themselves
In the end, the hate for The Lumineers might say more about us than it does about them. Their music isn’t trying to be anything other than what it is: accessible, emotional, and yes, a little bit twee. The Lumineers don’t demand much from their listeners, and for some people, that’s the problem. If art is supposed to challenge you, where does a band like The Lumineers fit in?
But maybe that’s their quiet brilliance. They’re not trying to be profound. They’re not trying to be edgy. They’re just trying to make music that feels good to listen to. And isn’t that the point of music in the first place? Or is that too earnest of a question to ask?
