Musicwrite thought for the day

[meserach.livejournal.com]

Is the current folk revival thing we've got going on (Laura Marling and Mumford and Sons being the touchstones I'm thinking of here) a reaction to the Auto-tuned artificalness of late noughties music in the same way that the seeing out of authenticity from souls in the late eighties was a reaction to the artificiality of the early eighties?

Comments

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Those bands grew out of the post-Strokes/Libertines indie scene - some of the kids picked up guitars and went folk instead of turning into the Arctic Monkeys. As for why they're popular... .

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i was thinking that they're more an "authenticity" reaction to Landfill Indie than to autotuney stuff (if we think that ppl playing gtrs are more likely to listen to others playing gtrs than other pop musics), but when you look at eg liza carthy and seth lakeman as early poineers of this sort of stuff they're both scions of Very Proper Folky Dynasties so maybe it's almost just a generational thing?

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I think it's something of a timing coincidence, myself. Folk and country music have become substantially less uncool over the last decade, so they get written about more in bigger sources and the people in those scenes experience more visibility & success, while people not connected to those scenes are less put off from taking an interest.

Also, I suspect perennial flutters of revived interest in Bob Dylan (assisted in part by 'I'm Not There') have helped.

I definitely think it *could* have been seen as a move towards 'authenticity', but not in the late '80s way, because I see an overt recognition (in bands like Mumford) of the impossibility of recreating the authentic, so the 'authentic' aspects seem like period features, if that makes sense? It's a more serious way of doing the sort of thing that The Decemberists have been doing quite wryly for almost a decade now.

Great question!

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I don't have any thoughts about the increased critical coverage (er, because I hadn't noticed one), but as regards the music being made as a reaction to anything, I think it's important to point out that it never really went away - as other have said, Seth Lakeman, Decemberists, The Unthanks, the 'token folky Mercury nom': it's in, you know, a tradition.

[meserach.livejournal.com]

You're all right, I'm just noticing a sort of prominence, in discussion and critical acclaim and general awareness, at least in the circles I pay attention to, of folk-inspired music - I shouldn't thereby posit that any more folky stuff is actually being made.

So I guess this about perception. But isn't it always?

[koganbot]

Well, the types who'd be reacting against AutoTune would have been reacting against Britney and ilk for years anyway, so I doubt that they'd have needed Jay Sean and Jason DeRulo and Iyaz to push them further. What I hinted at below seems more likely, that Marling in particular can draw on Adele-Duffy-Tashbed fans, on folkies, and on indie freak folkers, so could be a good general crossover between Starbucks and an actual den of coffeehouse bohemians. And she's real sexy. And talented, actually, though she's no Taylor. At least not yet. Haven't heard her new alb. alexmacpherson loves it, fuzzyedges is disappointed.

[koganbot]

Sexy, waifish, seems to fall codependently for uncommitted artistic loser types on the far cliffs of despair (in the several lyrics I've heard). In range of Tashbed and Amy. More accessible than freak folk. Sexy.