Let's talk about modern folk music, and why it's weird and silly for the most part

[stpauler]

@VCO3

What’s up with modern folk music?

What’s going on? How did we get from Woodie Guthrie to a band called the Gourds doing a novelty cover of “Gin and Juice” to an audience of politely tittering grad students?

I think part of the answer is right there in your post. We’re dealing with “modern” folk music. Folk music, IMO, has always been a mirror to the world. Something unadulterated and true. Something that speaks the voice of the people (da folk, of course).

Playing a cover is one way to do this (and for the record, Jill Sobule did this in concert too, but years ago). Personally, I think it’s a sign of a not-great performer when they don’t play a cover or two in concert (unless they’re a huge artist who can stand on a huge library of work). It’s a simple and effective way of endearing the audience to the artist. I’ve been to many a concert and have enjoyed the music of a performer I’ve never heard before, but always groped for a common link that can be made by performing another person’s song.

As for the other points:

**a) specifically “grad school”-ish, with a sort of affluent “NPR sensibility” **
Folk music has been associated with the learned and typically more liberal too. I frequent one of the larger folk venues in my area, The Cedar Cultural Center and the vibe is more indie/granola/co-op than "grad school"ish. But, even if it were, I’m struggling to see where this would be a problem that it’s associated with higher learning or vast media/news. Loudon Wainwright III’s album Social Studies was a compilation of his performances for NPR radio. These NPR sensibility songs dealt with things like: perspective on the Bosnian war, the combination of Christmas and the start of the (first) Iraq War, and a reply to Bill Clinton entanglements. There are other bands like The Foremen who are making quick replies out of current events.

b) kind of silly and novelty-obsessed

Yes, there’s that, but that’s always been a factor in folk music. Silly? Take a look at the annoyingly omnipresent PP&M’s “Puff the Magic Dragon” or the satirical “Draft Dodger Rag” by Phil Ochs. Silly, but they had a sense of meaning. For something more contemporary, check out former Four Bitchin’ Babes’ Camille West’s song “Toe to Toe With the HMO”

• As for my coverage, they say no
  This is a pre-existing toe
  My policy excludes
  All things pre-existing
  So if I want the claim approved
  The toe will have to be removed
  Which they believe may keep
  The problem from persisting
  This makes my doctor quite irate
  Why should he have to amputate?
  In his opinion this condition could
  Be better handled
  And as for me—I don’t know
  I’d kinda like to keep the toe
  I spent a fortune on these
  Gorgeous Gucci sandals
  Sexy
  Size 6
  Retail

Silly but poignant. A folk song that uses humor to illustrate a current problem with the bureaucracy and problematic health care in this country.
**c) incredibly slick and nonthreatening. **

Slick: We’re in a better age now. It’s more current. People finally have tuners that are more than a tuning fork. Recordings aren’t going right to vinyl. Right now, I’m listening to the bonus disc that came with my pre-order of Josh Rouse’s Country Mouse City House. It starts off with an instrumental song titled “Snowfall” and there are missed notes, incorrect notes, fret buzz, and imperfect mixing. It’s still a great song. So are the other songs on the album that have that polished and practiced vibe. Either way, the musicianship shines through.

Nonthreatening: I guess I was never threatened by “Diamonds and Rust” or “Sixteen Miles down the Erie Canal”. But, that’s not to say that that was all liked that. Pick up the latest issue of “Sing Out!” (mine’s at home right now, so I’m going from memory now) and you’ll see at least 10 songs going after Bush and current administration policies. After going to see Bjork and the Beastie Boys at the Sasquatch festival in Seattle over Labor Day weekend, we spent some time at the Northwest Folklife Festival and saw a bunch of folkers doing the ol’ protest music anew.
In conclusion, I find that anyone who lumps a whole genre of music into the wastebasket must be a person in the dark. Open the eyes and ears and see that there’s a whole world of music out there in the folk genre that still encompasses the old while embracing the new.

[well_he_s_back]

Bravo to your posts, Finagle and Stpauler.
(I hate it when other people read my mind and write what I’m thinking in a more coherent manner)

[Miller]

@lissener

Huh. I wanna listen to more of your folk music. To me, folk music is more simple, more mundane. An abstract, even surreal, image, like a white tent floating downstream on a raft, seems 180º antithetical to folk music. And the concept of eleven minutes–that’s prog rock, not folk music. Again, subjective.

Also, as you mention, you haven’t heard the song. But still, an eleven minute song about–about, not just mentioning–*about *an abstract image like the one described seems entirely the opposite of what I think about when I hear the phrase “folk music.”

I remember when Saturday Night Live had The Folksmen on (this was years before A Mighty Wind: Guest, McKean, and the rest were stumping for the just-released Spinal Tap at the time.) They did a backstage segment with them, where they talked about how they wanted to do a different song, but couldn’t agree which of the fifty-three verses they should cut to fit it into the alloted time. Instead, they did “Ea A Joe,” a song about a defective neon sign outside a diner. So, if we think of parody as being a distillation of the subjects essential qualities, then at least as far as the Guest crew is concerned, two of those essential qualities are interminable length, and fixation with a single evocative image.

[Plynck]

@lissener

I think the reason for all this is the same thing that happens to any genre: the genre’s inventors—Woody, Pete, Bob—were (are) geniuses who carved out something new from old materials. Almost everyone since has invented nothing; they’ve just copied the geniuses.

I’m trying to make sense of this, and I can’t. Is copying a good thing in your mind, or a bad thing? If those you cite were carving “out something new from old materials”, then weren’t they just copying in the way that you decry? And aren’t the artists of today doing the same thing, but with their own voices?

Woody, Pete, Bob et. al. didn’t invent folk music. They may have titled it so, and popularized it, but they were building on a tradition, as did the ones that they copied and rephrased. And as will continue to happen. I’m always willing to listen to hear what personal insight they are able to add to the genre.

@lissener

If you’re a real genius, that can work (Victoria Williams, the Mountain Goats, Rosie Thomas, Billy Bragg, the Be Good Tanyas, Will Oldham, John Prine, Katell Keinig, Ingird Karklins, et al.). If you’re not, you suck (Dar Williams, Shawn Colvin, Jonatha Brooke, Jewel, Veda Hille, Moxy Fruvous, ad nauseum).

Oh, they suck. Damn. I thought that I liked them. I think what you may have meant to say was:

@lissener

Um, no. I’m trying to describe what it is about folk music that I like and don’t like.

And look, you did say that. As a personal opinion, I can certainly respect your difference of opinion, but to say that certain artists suck makes me wonder whether this musical criticism came to us via Wayne’s World.

And, FTR, Moxy Fruvous does nothing for me, but I’ll still take them over 99% of the music on popular radio.

[lissener]

@Plynck

As a personal opinion, I can certainly respect your difference of opinion, but to say that certain artists suck makes me wonder whether this musical criticism came to us via Wayne’s World.

“They suck” *is *a personal opinion. (I’m a bit embarrassed that I continue to be surprised that this needs to be mentioned again. And again. And again.)

[lissener]

@Miller

I remember when Saturday Night Live had The Folksmen on (this was years before A Mighty Wind: Guest, McKean, and the rest were stumping for the just-released Spinal Tap at the time.) They did a backstage segment with them, where they talked about how they wanted to do a different song, but couldn’t agree which of the fifty-three verses they should cut to fit it into the alloted time. Instead, they did “Ea A Joe,” a song about a defective neon sign outside a diner. So, if we think of parody as being a distillation of the subjects essential qualities, then at least as far as the Guest crew is concerned, two of those essential qualities are interminable length, and fixation with a single evocative image.

Awesome. You’ve “proved,” with an exceptionally esoteric anecdote, that my example was poorly chosen, and even more poorly described. Whether Jane Siberry is a “folksinger” or not is something that should be decided by listening to her music; the facility with which my clumsily described example can be logically dissected has absolutely nothing do with the question. You’re not arguing about her music, you’re only arguing against my example, totally in the abstract: an exercise in astonishingly *utter *irrelevancy (unless this thread were titled “lissener’s skill in describing music”).

Now, since my ill-conceived example is far and away *not *what this thread is about, can we move on?

[lissener]

@Finagle

So…if you’re not a real genius, whatever that is, you might as well go home?
I have this image of a sailor pulling on a hawser and thinking, “You know, this sea shanty wasn’t written by a musical genius. To hell with this.”

THen it’s a good thing I offered no such false dichotomy.

@Finagle

The funny thing about the whole “genius” argument is that folk music is supposed to be the most accessible form of music. In pre-literate days, it carried news and oral tradition. Acted as work songs. Entertained people. If it relied on geniuses to write, there wouldn’t be much of it.

This makes no sense to me. You’re saying that genius is only possible in an academic setting? I think of it as a more native quality. The concept of “untrained genius” to me is not oxymoronic in the least.

@Finagle

As for sucking … In my opinion, a few of Dar William’s songs do venture upon brilliance (February, Travelling I, Iowa). Same with Shawn Colvin (her “Diamond in the Rough” album was very good). Not all their work is to my taste, but to say they suck is to fly so flagrantly in the face of common opinion that anyone saying that with a straight face should seriously question whether there’s something that they’re missing. You can’t arbitrarily define "musical genius"as “what I like” and “suck” as “what I don’t like”. Well, you can, but you’ll end up looking like a closed-minded pretentious twit if you do.

Again, then it’s a good thing I offered no such definition. What I find that sucks in music is obviously different from you find that sucks in music. (And again, and again, and again.)

[TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]

Interesting replies across the board! On one hand, I agree with what a lot of people are saying - that “folk music” has merely permutated according to the way that it’s been doing for a long time. When we think of Woody singing about workers, it’s the 1930 equivalent to a bunch of MFA students singing a punny anti-Bush song. I’m not sure that proves anything other than that modern folk really, really sucks.

Part of my complaint is that I feel that there are a lot of legitimate artists working in what I define as the capital-F Folk tradition - that is, writing songs from a ground-level or even outsider social perspective, then recording and presenting/communicating/releasing those songs in an equally non-slick, non-corporate, non-mainstream america manner - that are excluded from the “Folk Genre” scene and fans that tends to pack out Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, and so on.

John Darnielle (who has recorded as “The Mountain Goats” for about 20 years now), is probably the most truly Folk artist in America, a true “voice of the people” songwriter in the tradition of Dylan and Guthrie. The guy’s body of work is simply unparalleled, but I’d be willing to bet that most Dar/Nields fans have never heard of the guy because he’s not a part of their “folk music” genre. I could go on all day - Calvin Johnson, Phil Elverum (who records as “Mount Eerie”), Adrian Orange (who often records as “Thanksgiving”), Karl Blau (truly a Moondog-level eccentric for our time), Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn, etc. - and that’s only dealing with one tiny Pac Northwest crew! - before you even get into the Devendras, Kimya Dawsons, Joanna Newsoms, Espers, Marissa Nadlers, Handsome Family, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum. - all artists who are truly living and creating in the American Folk tradition.

This highlights the real problem with “modern folk” - it’s a genre rather than a medium. “Folk fans” don’t actually want legitimate folk music created by people living and working in the American Folk Tradition, they want “folk music,” a Starbucks and NPR-approved subgenre of Adult Contemporary Pop Music created by people like Dar Williams and the Nields. They should just call it something else.

[Miller]

@lissener

Awesome. You’ve “proved,” with an exceptionally esoteric anecdote, that my example was poorly chosen, and even more poorly described. Whether Jane Siberry is a “folksinger” or not is something that should be decided by listening to her music; the facility with which my clumsily described example can be logically dissected has absolutely nothing do with the question. You’re not arguing about her music, you’re only arguing against my example, totally in the abstract: an exercise in astonishingly *utter *irrelevancy (unless this thread were titled “lissener’s skill in describing music”).

Now, since my ill-conceived example is far and away *not *what this thread is about, can we move on?

Well, you’re right that I’m not arguing about her music. I’ve never even heard of her, so it’d be pretty dumb for me to argue about what sort of music she makes. But when you mentioned her, you said something that caught my attention: you said that it was unimaginable that a long song about a single image could possibly be a folk song. This struck me as odd, because that sounds like a stereotype of a folk song. When I mentioned as much, you seemed incredulous, so I brought up an example of a folk-parody that played off exactly those elements: it seemed to me that if a widely respected group of parodists had chosen precisely those themes to work with in their parody of folk-singing, that was pretty good evidence that those stereotypes were well known and wide spread. I don’t think this is remotely irrelevent, since the topic of the thread is, “Why does folk music suck so much?” a premise you seem to be in basic agreement with. But you can’t have a discussion if both sides don’t agree on terms, and it seemed that you had a very different idea of what folk songs are like than I do. So, I think my posts were very much on-topic. If you still think I’m being irrelevent, you are, of course, in no wise constrained to reply to me.

BTW, beceause of this thread, I listened to some of the samples of Siberry’s stuff on iTunes. Sounds a bit folksy to me. I like it, though. When I’ve got a bit of spending cash, I think I might pick up one of her albums. Anything you’d recommend in particular?

[lissener]

@Miller

BTW, beceause of this thread, I listened to some of the samples of Siberry’s stuff on iTunes. Sounds a bit folksy to me. I like it, though. When I’ve got a bit of spending cash, I think I might pick up one of her albums. Anything you’d recommend in particular?

Yes, it does *sound *a bit folksy, which is why she’s sometimes misnomered thusly. But the similarities are only surface deep. She’s prog-folk, if anything. (The NYTimes once described Peter Gabriel as “slightly less adventurous” than Jane Siberry.)

If you like complex, “difficult,” quasi-Joycean layers within layers, try When I Was a Boy, a song cycle (literally; it ends where it begins) about the pain of living (to give it a lissener-wrought cliche; she’d never describe it so). WIWaB is kind of the third installment of a trilogy, though. The first,* The Walking*, is simpler and prettier, for the most part. Though it does contain “The White Tent the Raft.” The second in the trilogy is Bound by the Beauty, in which Jane consciously turned to Country influences. So it’s both the most accessible and the most “folksy.” Many fans suggest *BbtB *as a first way into her stuff.

Canadians can download most of her stuff for free (well, she lets you choose your own price) at her website, janesiberry.com. But the US rights are mostly owned by Warner Brothers.

(And for the record, yes, I’m aware that she’s recently gone insane. She’s changed her name to “Issa” and given away all of her worldly goods. Except her guitar. But the albums she made in the 80s and 90s are still d.i.d.s for me.)

[Plynck]

@lissener

“They suck” *is *a personal opinion. (I’m a bit embarrassed that I continue to be surprised that this needs to be mentioned again. And again. And again.)

No. “I think they suck” is a personal opinion. “They suck” (without qualifiers) is an attempt to phrase a personal opinion as an accepted and accomplished fact so as to end a discussion in your favor, notwithstanding anyone else’s opinion. It is the message board equivalent of putting one’s hands over one’s ears and saying “lalalaIcan’thearyou”. It’s fine to say to those who share your opinions, and offensive to those who do not.

And I am embarassed to have to point out to you that your recognition of this would have avoided countless board fights, pit threads and timeouts. As has been mentioned again and again and again.

---

We return now to our regularly scheduled broadcast: If the discussion is that the music has moved away from the term “Folk Music”, then I would agree. But I really would expect that to be the case in any musical genre. Classical music composed today bears little resemblance to that from two hundred years ago. For that matter, rock and roll isn’t the same today as from the fifties or sixties. Why should folk music be any different?

How do you want to define it? Political? Fine, then are U2 or Bruce Springsteen folk artists? I think that we all put our own definition on folk music, and then support what we like. What’s wrong with that?

@koeeoaddi

If it’s euphonious and acoustic, it pretty much works for me.

That’s pretty much how I think of it. I’d throw in singer/songwriter most of the time, but my definition is fairly flexible.

[Miller]

@lissener

Yes, it does sound a bit folksy, which is why she’s sometimes misnomered thusly. But the similarities are only surface deep. She’s prog-folk, if anything. (The NYTimes once described Peter Gabriel as “slightly less adventurous” than Jane Siberry.)

I admit, music criticism isn’t my forte, but if it “sounds” folksy, doesn’t that make it folk? How else do you categorize music, except by what it sounds like?

@Plynck

No. “I think they suck” is a personal opinion. “They suck” (without qualifiers) is an attempt to phrase a personal opinion as an accepted and accomplished fact so as to end a discussion in your favor, notwithstanding anyone else’s opinion. It is the message board equivalent of putting one’s hands over one’s ears and saying “lalalaIcan’thearyou”. It’s fine to say to those who share your opinions, and offensive to those who do not.

That strikes me as ridiculously over-sensitive. If it’s understood going into the conversation that taste is subjective, then there’s no point in putting “I think” in front of every comment. Particularly since this only seems to go one way: you never see anyone being chastized for saying, “They’re great,” instead of, “I think they’re great.” If I think that they suck, should I not be just as offended at your attempt to “phrase a personal opinion as an accepted and accomplished fact?”

[Plynck]

@Miller

If I think that they suck, should I not be just as offended at your attempt to “phrase a personal opinion as an accepted and accomplished fact?”

But really, you won’t be, will you? Because you said “If *I think that * they suck”, and not “If they suck”. And because of that, I think that you can tell that “XYZ sucks” implies a general agreement or a concensus that “I think XYZ sucks” does not. Hence my comment: “It’s fine to say to those who share your opinions, and offensive to those who do not.”

Considering that the poster disparaged artists that were previously cited as favorites by other posters, this implication of concensus could hardly be justified, and in fact could be seen as either thoughtless (looking at it charitably), or provocative (rather less charitably). Look at the responses to that post, and tell me that I’m the only one being ridiculously over-sensitive.

FWIW, many of the artists cited herein appeal to me, and I’m taking note of the ones I don’t know to check them out. In my opinion, Judy Collins was never much more than an interpreter, and for many years she hasn’t even been good at that. Joan Baez turns my stomach, although she has good taste in finding new artists to steal from. But both of them can still command an audience, so I’m hardly going to say that they suck. They just appeal to a different group. And I’m hardly going to write off a genre when there are so many different niches filled with talented people, singing their own personal vision.

[BMalion]

“If I had a Hammer…
there’d be no folk singers.”

-Martin Mull

[Plynck]

@BMalion

“If I had a Hammer…
there’d be no folk singers.”

-Martin Mull

And let Woody sort 'em out.

Didn’t he also used to talk about the Great Folk Music Scare of the '60s?

[well_he_s_back]

Since I love folk music (whatever it is, apparently), I’m bouncing back in with a couple random comments:

• Plynck: There’s nothing wrong with being an interpreter of other people’s music, if you’re a good one. At one time Judy Collins was an excellent interpreter. Listen to her “In My Life” album.

-anyone here familiar with Utah Philips or Art Thieme? Great singers of traditional songs. But Eric Bogle, who writes his own songs is equally in the folk tradition. As is Peggy Seeger, who does both.

-Just because a song has a writer we can identify now doesn’t mean it won’t become a “folk song”. “This Land is Your Land” and “City of New Orleans” are obvious examples. There are probably others out there along with all the silly, sucky songs in the folk world today. Who knows which will last, but I’m betting some will.

[koeeoaddi]

@BMalion

“If I had a Hammer…
there’d be no folk singers.”

-Martin Mull

As a side note, for peculiar songs with abstract themes, I’d encourage lissener to check out my heroes, The Incredible String Band. The hippie sensibility is dated, but the music is as fresh to me as it was 35 years ago and, for good or ill, no one else has ever sounded anything like them. Try Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter. There’s a 13 minute song on, well … cell division, among other things, A Very Cellular Song, a weirdly beautiful reminiscence of childhood Koeeoaddi There and one of the best acoustic songs I’ve ever heard Witches Hat.

Having said that, I should also say that I’m complete inured to hearing that certain artists, or folk music in general “sucks.” I couldn’t have been an ISB fan for so long without hearing those very words, over and over and over, from just about everyone I know.

I await your amused derision.

[Finagle]

@Miller

That strikes me as ridiculously over-sensitive. If it’s understood going into the conversation that taste is subjective, then there’s no point in putting “I think” in front of every comment.

Well, context and tone play a large part in how offensive a particular pronouncement of suckage is . A sentence like

@Lissener

I think the reason for all this is the same thing that happens to any genre: the genre’s inventors—Woody, Pete, Bob—were (are) geniuses who carved out something new from old materials. Almost everyone since has invented nothing; they’ve just copied the geniuses. If you’re a real genius, that can work (Victoria Williams, the Mountain Goats, Rosie Thomas, Billy Bragg, the Be Good Tanyas, Will Oldham, John Prine, Katell Keinig, Ingird Karklins, et al.). If you’re not, you suck (Dar Williams, Shawn Colvin, Jonatha Brooke, Jewel, Veda Hille, Moxy Fruvous, ad nauseum).

is at the same time so pretentious and so clearly * wrong * that it begs a response in the same way that the sentence

@Lissener

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the cutesy stuff that I just cannot stand. I would rather have my teeth removed, one by one, by a ball peen hammer, than listen to the Nields or Moxy Fruvous. "

does not. For the second one, you might respond “whatever, dude”, or * chacun a son gout *, or even “hmmm, you might try listening to a particular song by the Nields or Moxy Fruvous which might change your mind” The first example says, whether the author intended it or not, that “I am the arbiter of taste. If you like any of these artists, your taste is inferior.” It’s actually fairly insulting.

As a rebuttal, one might point out that Dar Williams is extremely popular. What’s more, unlike many pop artists who have become very popular based on what appears to be insignificant amounts of talent, Dar Williams became popular without a massive publicity campaign. When “Honesty Room” was released on Razor & Tie, I’m sure it had a publicity budget of tens of dollars. The album sold on word of mouth alone (and probably word of rec.folk as well). I was living in the Pioneer Valley when the album came out and I remember the buzz it generated. Artists who can generate that kind of hype in a community have to have some quality that differentiates them from “suck”. They may not be your cup of tea. You may find them a bit sophomoric or unsophisticated or untalented as singers and there’s nothing wrong with stating your opinion.

But…to state outright, without qualification, as a matter of fact, that artists who have become highly successful and beloved artists without the aid of any sort of artificial hype machine “suck” must reflect so negatively on your critical credentials as to utterly destroy them.

[BMalion]

@Plynck

…

Didn’t he also used to talk about the Great Folk Music Scare of the '60s?

Yes he did.

Ironic that this amuses me so, I used to be in a folk band, named, oddly enough, Finagle.

[It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery]

I didn’t see this mentioned anywhere else, but IMHO, folk music changed in the late 70’s - early 80’s when it stopped being the main outlet for politically charged music, and punk rock took over as the most political form of music.