Southsea Tunes: The Folk Renaissance
Folk music has had a real resurgence in popularity in recent years. In times gone by, folk music has had quite a negative reputation: it was once perceived as being ‘un-cool’ and was heavily associated with beards, ale and the British countryside. But, in more modern times, folk music has seen a significant increase in its fan base. Furthermore, it is now regularly seen in the charts and considered to be alternative and far cooler than it has ever done before.
Arguably, artists such as Damien Rice and Ray LaMontagne have re-vamped the genre and presented it in a whole new light. Traditionally, folk music was heavily associated with the telling of stories and these were often representative of local or national culture. Some of that tradition has been lost in modern folk music but frequently the songs still tell a tale albeit one which is more preoccupied with the ideas of love and relationships.
The 2009 Mumford & Sons album, Sigh No More, is a prime example of this: particularly, the song I Gave You All which tells the story of a broken hearted young man who is reflecting on his failed relationship: “If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won” he sings. Equally, the Damien Rice song, Older Chests reflects on a more modern cultural interest, the emotional male:
“Papa went to other lands
And he found someone who understands
The ticking, and the western man’s need to cry
He came back the other day, you know
Some things in life may change
And some things
They stay the same”
Many might argue that this is not true folk but I put it to you that, like so many things, folk has adapted and developed into a modern alternative and that this is why it has experienced something of a renaissance in recent times. Folk songs such as Good Luck to the Barley Mow, which seems to be about the hope that the year’s barley crops will be good, just do not have a place in mainstream music of today. The young people who buy albums (read as: mp3s) do not care less about the crops because, well, we have supermarkets. We don’t rely upon the success of the crops – we just buy a pizza instead. Our preoccupations revolve around far more personal stories and in this age of reality television, we love a peek into the lives of others and this is where modern folk music comes in – it allows us to share in the failures and successes of the songwriter whilst reflecting on our own.
So, with this in mind, it is clear that folk music has had to reassign itself to fit in with the requirements of the modern listener. Everyone enjoys a good story and as such, folk music is still relatively popular albeit under its new guise as a modern, nosy and intimate reincarnation of its former cultural tales.
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