I Hate Sigur Ros

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


HvarfenflarfA while back I posted a link to preview a lovely-looking documentary on Icelandic combo Sigur Rós. The stunning, hi-def shots of the band’s homeland and the unusual locations for the live performances were intriguing, despite the fact that their music has always bugged me. So it was with some interest that I awaited the band’s new double album, Hvarf/Heim, which comes out next Tuesday. Would it signal a musical evolution, finally allowing me to join my hipster friends in Sigur Rós adoration?

Nope. To be fair, the album isn’t entirely new, and is more like a double EP: part 1, Hvarf, consists of “lost” songs from earlier in their career (like, what did they do with them?), and Heim is an acoustic set of older songs. But listen to “Staralfur,” from the second EP, on their MySpace. The two-chord structure is just lazy, and the piano trills are so sappy they belong on a Hallmark Movie of the Week soundtrack. Lead singer Jónsi Birgisson sounds like an elf with a nasal infection, and when the track erupts into a supposedly climactic all-strings coda, you get every sad cliché from when a pop band writes for violins: naive, faux-tearjerky melodies, floating around the base of the chord. It sounds like the music from those “The More You Know” PSAs. Hvarf? Blarf!

Now, the accompanying film, Heima, shows that perhaps the Rós are best heard as an inoffensive soundtrack for affecting visuals. But if I ever have state secrets you want to get out of me, skip the waterboarding and go right for Hvarf/Heim at full volume. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate