By Luca Woodruff, Second Year, Law
Why has folk, traditionally a genre of protest and collectivism, returned to popular music? Does it still champion social activism or has it shifted to an introspective politics of the self? And why has a genre historically associated with community re-emerged in a cultural moment characterised by isolation?
Folk has broken back into the charts through a new generation of artists with the likes of Noah Kahan, Hozier, Bon Iver, The Lumineers, Vance Joy. The list goes on. Their music is discernible from much of the wider pop scene by their emphasis on narrative storytelling and acoustic intimacy. Yet they remain, at least in part, pop-adjacent. Their reach is often amplified by modern avenues of music discovery: social media snippets and the algorithmic circulation of trends on TikTok.
It would be misguided to evaluate the undercurrent of contemporary folk without first understanding the roots, or rather the grassroots, of traditional folk music.
The 20th century established the blueprint. Bob Dylan is perhaps the founding father of protest folk, writing political ballads which preach anti-war, class-conscious sentiments. There is a sense, not of nihilism or despair, but of the solicitation of action. It is, ultimately, empowering.
This spirit of activism also binds the work of Odetta, whose unification of folk and blues foregrounds the struggle of Black Americans during the 1960s Civil Rights movement. This era of folk is paramount to conceptualising the genre as a manifestation of protest, a resistance to the social conditions of the time and a megaphone to demand change.
This being said, direct activism hasn’t always been the language of traditional folk acts. Simon & Garfunkel communicate the effects of a changing social landscape through themes of alienation and isolation, still identifying as folk because they convey these personal anxieties as something collectively felt.
So, traditional folk was never confined to messages of overt protest. If Bob Dylan is the father of folk-activism, Joni Mitchell is the mother of folk-introspection. Her work turned inward, exploring the intricacies of her personal life with a renowned emotional vulnerability, influencing generations of songwriters regardless of genre. Even at her most intimate, Mitchell is quintessentially a folk artist, connecting with her listeners through a medium of individual reflection.
It is Mitchell’s introspective style which contemporary folk-pop is derived from. Noah Kahan’s music is centred around an intensely personal narrative, from small-town stagnation and its tainted nostalgia to addiction and loss. ‘Stick Season’ is the metaphor in which Kahan’s troubles are delivered to us, the end of autumn suspended in limbo, waiting for winter. It is this sense of liminality, this movement between stages of life which reverberates with listeners and has given Kahan his status as ‘Jesus’ of folk-pop.
To beat a dead (metaphorical) horse, if Joni Mitchell is the mother of introspective folk, Noah Kahan is the son of this maturing, liminal folk music.
Kahan’s success suggests that listeners connect with what he is writing about and arguably reveals a shift in the listening culture of folk music. Where the 60s era used folk as a literal tool of political mobilisation, contemporary folk is more static. The sentiment has evolved from ‘there is a problem, we must act’, to simply ‘there is a problem’. Listeners find solidarity in the confession of individual suffering; it is an experience which breeds reassurance and comfort.
There are, of course, exceptions to this, primarily in the Irish folk scene. Lankum, a Dublin-based band, litter their songs with political commentary. They touch on communal issues such as poverty and women’s rights, continuing the legacy of protest embedded within Irish folk traditions. Nonetheless, acts like Lankum remain the exception rather than the rule within this contemporary revival. The broader movement of popular folk is much less concerned with activism than it is with articulating the emotional turbulence of modern life.
Is this a bad thing? It’s important to understand why this change has happened, and the fallout of 2020’s global pandemic is a likely suspect. A time characterised by government mandated social isolation, where there was very much ‘a problem’, but not really anything to be done about it. Since then, we are allowed out, but society appears increasingly atomised. Be it rampant social media addiction or perpetual culture wars, the sense of civic community feels much weaker than it once did. In this landscape, music becomes one of the only planes where collective feeling can be found. Mainstream contemporary folk may not mobilise crowds in the way Dylan’s protest songs once did, but it still offers a form of private solidarity.
Disha Angadi
There is a risk that this inward turn reflects a cultural apathy, where the acknowledgement of suffering disposes of any urge to change the conditions which produce it. But, different generations of folk have always mirrored the society they are born from. If folk of the 60s captured a generation wanting to challenge the structures around them, the introspective folk of today reflects a generation navigating uncertainty, loneliness and transition.
Either way, folk is fundamentally a genre of shared feeling. Whether it rallies community or creates the feeling of one, it is undoubtedly a feature of a healthier, closer society.
Featured image: Epigram / Sophie ScannellAre you a fan of modern-day folk music?
