The Lumineers’ third studio album, aptly titled “III,” recounts to its listeners a moving story of addiction, family and personal struggles. The folk-rock band manages to pull off an airy auditory experience throughout the album despite its focus on serious topics by pairing them with powerful and upbeat melodies.

Odds are, if a person cares at all about pop music or modern music in general, that person has an opinion about One Direction. True, they are, as *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys were before them, a boy...