This week has been filled with outdated indie discourse about whether or not or not Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros’ 2009 hit “Dwelling” is the worst track of all time. A clip of the group’s Tiny Desk efficiency has been recirculating with many sturdy opinions. Now bandleader Alex Ebert has weighed in.
“Right here’s how you understand when a track is nice,” Ebert begins the video saying, persevering with:
If the bones are good, if the bones let the track survive context, in the event you pull it out of acoustic guitar, you place a piano there and it really works, it’s a superb track. You pull it out of the piano, you place it on the harp, it’s nonetheless working, you are taking out of the harp, you sing it a capella, it’s nonetheless working, good track.
Now “Dwelling” has been lined a number of occasions, various things. A few of them are hits, like precise hit songs. Some man takes it from baritone places it in falsetto, you understand, the one which went viral. Edith Whiskers, shoutout to no matter that’s, that went viral. By the way in which we have been the primary to do the stomp and clap fuckin’ people pop factor to the purpose the place the Lumineers, they sought out considered one of our co-producers — he wasn’t really our co-producer — and have been like, “Hey, do this Edward Sharpe factor for us.” For actual, that’s an actual story. Of Monsters & Males, they acquired our album earlier than they ever made an album as a result of our agent was their supervisor and he or she confirmed it to them and so they principally acquired so near “Dwelling” that we virtually sued them. They have been doing Apple commercials and I used to be getting calls saying, “Congratulations.” That’s how intently folks began doing this.
And by the way in which, “Dwelling” isn’t a superb recording, it’s only a good track. But it surely not being a superb recording is what I really like about “Dwelling.” It’s like a second. We recorded it on tape, we didn’t even know how one can file on tape, it sounds prefer it’s made in some muffled storage. I needed to unfold the porous happenstance incidentalism of Edward Sharpe. As an alternative what I unfold was stomp claps taken and recorded higher, and that’s miserable. However “Dwelling” is seemingly a superb track.
Within the caption, he added:
It’s a query I’ve requested myself a lot — is dwelling a superb track? One thing I forgot to say is I lately was requested by my 90-year-old father to play dwelling at his birthday. He was begging as if his life trusted it so I needed to oblige. There was a piano within the restaurant so I simply performed it like that, entire chords, simply me on the piano in a restaurant at midday. I’ll try to discover a recording of it, nevertheless it changed into nearly my favourite model of the track. The truth is I hold pondering possibly I ought to launch a model of it. Anyway, that’s once I made up my thoughts that Dwelling, the bones of it a minimum of, are nice. It’s a superb track.
Effectively, onto the following discourse.
Worst track ever made https://t.co/CJRrvp3C4r pic.twitter.com/BS4wHAqrLK
— Justin🦩Boldaji (@justinboldaji) August 4, 2025
