The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/the-lumineers/)
It is the long awaited time of year again: Spring has technically sprung, according to the schedule of the equinoxes.
The following playlist is meant to capture the fleeting hope that comes with spring. It is light at first, short lived yet giddy before the heaviness of summer begins to set in and temperaments become relaxed.
I’m a recent convert to country music. At one point, I might have given the usual line that I listen to “anything but country” — now, if you see me driving around campus with my windows down, you’ll probably hear me blasting my hours-long “country era” playlist. This week, the country album of choice has been Zach Bryan’s new self-titled album, a raw 54 minutes of poetry, folk and Americana.
On August 25, Bryan released his fourth full-length album since his debut DeAnn (2019). In the last four years, Bryan has amassed over 16 million monthly listeners on Spotify and sold out shows nationwide. Yet, despite his quickly-earned success, Zach Bryan does not pose as anything other than Zach Bryan.
The band’s third album, aptly titled III, reinforces this musical cohesion while emboldening and expanding their repertoire of soothing, folksy and endlessly artistic music.
Last Friday, the world heard “Ophelia,” the first single released from The Lumineers’ new album, Cleopatra. As expected, it is hauntingly beautiful. The song is named after the ingenue of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The lyrics state, “And I don’t feel no remorse/And you can’t see past my blindness,” which is similar to the undying love Ophelia had for Hamlet, who did not regret ending their affair prematurely. The emotional distance between these two characters from the tragedy is evident in the song and, as a Shakespeare fanatic, I can appreciate the lyrics.