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Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
American folk rock band
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros were an American folk rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 2005. The group was led by singer Alex Ebert.
The band's name is based on a story Ebert wrote in his youth, about a messianic figure named Edward Sharpe. Drawing from roots rock, folk, gospel, and psychedelic music, the band's image and sound evoke the hippie movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
The group's first show was played July 18, 2007, at The Troubadour in West Hollywood, California. Their first studio album, Up from Below, was released on July 7, 2009, on Community Records and featured the popular single "Home".
indie folkneo-psychedeliafolk rockrockstomp and holler
The Elsewhere GazetteExtra
Origin and first studio album (Up from Below)
After years of the Los Angeles party life and subsequent drug addiction, Ima Robot frontman Alex Ebert broke up with his girlfriend, moved out of his house, and spent time in rehabilitation. During this time, Ebert began to write a book about a messianic figure named Edward Sharpe who was "sent down to Earth to kinda heal and save mankind, but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love." Ebert adopted the Sharpe persona as his alter ego. He said, "I don't want to put too much weight on it, because in some ways it's just a name that I came up with. But I guess if I look deeper, I do feel like I had lost my identity in general. I really didn't know what was going on or who I was anymore. Adopting another name helped me open up...
An American alternative/indie/folk band from in Los Angeles, California formed in 2007
Also known as: Edward Sharpe, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeroes
From Discogs (free to use). Their entry
Liner notes
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, the records, oldest first
Here Comes
2009 ep
Up From Below
2009 album
wanted
iTunes Session
2010 ep
Here
2012 album
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
2013 album
PersonA
2016 album
Records from MusicBrainz; covers from the Cover Art Archive.
2010 single by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
"Home" is a song written and recorded by American group Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It was released in January 2010 as the second single from the album, Up from Below (2009).
The song came in at number 73 on Australian radio station Triple J's 100 hottest songs of the past 20 years.
Music video
A music video for the song features a selection of clips of the band on tour in Australia. It was made by Ryan Gall, with cinematography from Gall, Petey Klein, Stephen Frizza and Hamish Siddins.
Reception
In 2025, Alex Ebert responded to retrospective criticism of the song, after some commentators had called it "the worst song ever written". He argued that the structure of song was fundamentally good and that was evidenced by the various cover versions and changes others had made to it and it still held up. He qualified that it may not be a well recorded song as it had been recorded on tape. He accepted the muffled quality of the audio, saying they had wanted to capture the happenstance incidental quality of the band. Ebert also noted that the song came before the folk pop sound was more widely popularized by other bands such as The Lumineers and Of Monsters and Men.
