I am coming out again, this time as a lover of stomp and clap music. This will probably get me in trouble with my mother in a way that coming out as bisexual never did, because she believed that you should always be your authentic self, so long as you have good taste. Stomp clap music has often been the subject of much derision and a bit of a punchline. But despite the ridicule, I’m willing to defend my taste.
The genre, sometimes referred to as stomp and holler or indie folk, peaked in the 2000s, with bands such as the Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men and, of course, Mumford & Sons – think a lot of guitars, banjos, the odd fiddle, literal stomping and clapping, with the occasional rousing “hey!” in the background. It was largely associated with hipsters – the twirly moustached, braces and Henley-shirt-wearing kind – and with band members who all look like Sunday school preachers and youth pastors. I can’t stand the aesthetic, but the music is undeniable.
So how did a black queer woman – raised on jazz and soul – end up loving these bands? Mostly through a lot of late nights on Tumblr – the mainstay of any teenager figuring themselves out in the 2010s. I was obsessed with the Norwegian teen drama Skam and all its various iterations and adaptations. It’s an obsession that led me to Tumblr, where there were tonnes of fan edits (short video tributes to the show’s couples and characters), all set to an endless stream of stomp and clap such as the Lumineers’ Ophelia or King and Lionheart by Of Monsters And Men.
