Why don't you like folk music?

[Spandex]

When I was 16 there was a girl I really fancied that was well into folk music - all that Fairport Convention stuff and the older stuff. She played at folk nights. She was cute and cool. In an attempt to impress her with my knowledge and shared interest in folk I bought a few albums and listened to them.

Fuck me, that shit is boring. Naturally, it never happened with her.

Twenty years later, a friend at work got into all this new anti-folk stuff. Still bores me to tears. Why, of all the the types of music in the world, is there a friggin folk revival going on?

 

[El Jefe]

i find too much British folk music to be mannered, forced somehow. And too reverential.

It's why I like the Winterset - Becky & Rachel don't sing in that obligatory "folky" way.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

i think the Vic and Bob spoof did folk music for me (can't remember what they were called tho).

 

[butchersapron]

The titty biscuits one? Mulligan and O'Hare

 

[Spion]

Anne Briggs -Blackwaterside

 

[seeformiles]

god it's awful. that kind of whinnying singing gets on my tits .

That's the bit that annoys me - it sounds like it's stranded somewhere between West country and Southern Ireland with a really bad cold. Apart from that, some of the songs are great - just spoilt by this supposed authentic accent.

I've heard Engish "Irish" folk bands that announce the songs in their normal accents yet affect a cod Dubliners-type voice when singing.

The band I play in does some reggae but I would never think to put on a W.Indian accent when singing it!! (a bit offensive to say the least)

 

[Bakunin]

i think the Vic and Bob spoof did folk music for me (can't remember what they were called tho).

Have you checked out the American folk 'mockumentary' called 'A Mighty Wind' at all? It's by the same people who did 'This Is Spinal Tap.'

 

[belboid]

Twenty years later, a friend at work got into all this new anti-folk stuff. Still bores me to tears. Why, of all the the types of music in the world, is there a friggin folk revival going on?

Authenticity. Other styles of music are based upon a facade, style over substance, whereas folk (and some punk) is simple working/agricultural-class experience unmediated. They mean it, maaaaan.

Thats the idea anyway.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

The titty biscuits one? Mulligan and O'Hare

yes, thank you, i would have been trying to remember the mighty mulligan and o'hare all day otherwise. priceless

 

[foo]

Authenticity. Other styles of music are based upon a facade, style over substance, whereas folk (and some punk) is simple working/agricultural-class experience unmediated. They mean it, maaaaan.

Thats the idea anyway.

really??

in my town the folk scene is terribly middleclass.

 

[danny la rouge]

in my town the folk scene is terribly middleclass.

Folk clubs can be. But that doesn't mean all folk music is.

 

[ericjarvis]

i find too much British folk music to be mannered, forced somehow. And too reverential.

Precisely. Folk music should be an obvious precursor to punk. If it isn't then it's too artificial. To be honest I think it's better as music to participate in than to listen to.

Secondly, it's important to understand the difference between folk music and "traditional folk music". The former is just music for and by ordinary people, and thus entirely admirable and generally entertaining if you enjoy songs about sex, violence, getting thoroughly pissed, being exploited by the posh kids, getting one over on the bosses. The latter is an attempt by the Victorian middle classes to fake up a safe and unthreatening English tradition to replace all the various disreputable regional traditions. As such it sometimes leads to some quite pretty tunes but otherwise is a waste of time.

 

[Belushi]

I cant abide punk either

 

[Roadkill]

Folk clubs can be. But that doesn't mean all folk music is.

Well, this. And much the same can be said about the reverential, po-faced, hey-nonny-no end of folk music: it's certainly it's not all like that. A whole load of different things get lumped together as 'folk' - and stereotyped as such.

 

[belboid]

really??

in my town the folk scene is terribly middleclass.

scenes genrally are tho, arent they? The point of the music is meant to be about the experience of the 'ordinary man' tho (with the occasional lord and/or dragon thrown in)

 

[Belushi]

scenes genrally are tho, arent they? The point of the music is meant to be about the experience of the 'ordinary man' tho (with the occasional lord and/or dragon thrown in)

Isnt that the point of whole swathe of popular music though? Folk has never said anything to me about my life though genres like Metal and Hip-Hop have at different times.

This is getting similar to another folk thread we had recently.

 

[killer b]

yer Steeleye Span type stuff is just crap, but thankfully most british folk isn't like that.

some of the early stuff is ace...

also, morris dancing rules.

this 'too serious' thing confuses me - all the folk gigs i've ever been to have been a mixture - some earnest ballads, but plenty of ribald or humorous stuff...

i like ashley hutchings' post steeleye/fairport stuff - the compleat dancing master is fantastic. as is morris on...

 

[foo]

scenes genrally are tho, arent they? The point of the music is meant to be about the experience of the 'ordinary man' tho (with the occasional lord and/or dragon thrown in)

what do you mean? not all scenes are middle class at all. not the ones i've been involved in anyway.

or am i missing your point?

 

[belboid]

Isnt that the point of whole swathe of popular music though? Folk has never said anything to me about my life though genres like Metal and Hip-Hop have at different times.

This is getting similar to another folk thread we had recently.

hip hop i think could well count as an 'urban folk' type thing, it pretty much hits the same bases. Metal doesnt really do the same thing tho, other than sex it doesn't really sing about day to day life, especially not work (tho obviously it is musically based around the sound of the production line).

 

[Roadkill]

Isnt that the point of whole swathe of popular music though? Folk has never said anything to me about my life though genres like Metal and Hip-Hop have at different times.

Thing is, the fact that a lot of traditional song reflects and speaks of times and places I've not lived through is precisely why I find it interesting. I find I relate to it a lot more than a great deal of music that purports to talk about things that should be far more familiar to me. And again, 'folk' is a broad church and there are bands out there writing stuff that takes a lot of cues from traditional music but whose lyrics tackle subjects that are very contemporary.

 

[danny la rouge]

Dick Gaughan, with Emmylou Harris:
Silly Wizard:
Martyn Bennett:

 

[Spandex]

Authenticity. Other styles of music are based upon a facade, style over substance, whereas folk (and some punk) is simple working/agricultural-class experience unmediated. They mean it, maaaaan.

Thats the idea anyway.

Besdies trying to get into some girl's pants, I think that's what made me give folk a chance. It just seems that the buttons that it presses for some people are missing with me. It doesn't move me, rock me, make me want to shake my booty or anything else, even stroke my chin. Whether it's the traditional mannered folky folk or the cool modern stuff it just all leaves me cold; after half a song I want a huge bassline to hit me, or my head to be twisted, or something. Anything.

 

[matt m]

Isnt that the point of whole swathe of popular music though? Folk has never said anything to me about my life though genres like Metal and Hip-Hop have at different times.

Give it time. I've had punk, hip-hop, jazz, reggae and classical phases. Currently going through a serious folk one.

Funny, i don't really feel like I'm listening to different types of music when I put on a blues CD after a UK folk one after a bluegrass one. I feel like they're part and parcel of one big continuum.

There's on old English song called "as sylvie was walking" that I just learned from the Penguin book of English Folk Songs. It is so nearly a blues it's uncanny. But then again actually it's not uncanny at all, when you think about where the blues came from (african-legacy field hollers colliding with European-legacy folk tradition)

 

[killer b]

prickly bush = leadbelly's 'gallis tree'. there's a massive english folk influence on teh blues...

 

[belboid]

what do you mean? not all scenes are middle class at all. not the ones i've been involved in anyway.

or am i missing your point?

well, to me, if it uses the word 'scene' then its become middle-class If it's just a thing where people hang out listening to a particular kind of music (or whatever) then it isnt a scene.

 

[DaRealSpoon]

Funny, i don't really feel like I'm listening to different types of music when I put on a blues CD after a UK folk one after a bluegrass one. I feel like they're part and parcel of one big continuum.

^^ This totally. All blues fans please see the work of Martin Simpson

 

[danny la rouge]

prickly bush = leadbelly's 'gallis tree'. there's a massive english folk influence on teh blues...

There was a great episode of the Radio Scotland Programme Songlines, which traced the roots of the song St James Infirmary. I wonder if it's online anywhere; it's well worth listening to.

 

[belboid]

There was a great episode of the Radio Scotland Programme Songlines, which traced the roots of the song St James Infirmary. I wonder if it's online anywhere; it's well worth listening to.

there's an astounding collectin of Jimmys at http://prewarblues.org/2008/07/so-young-so-cold-so-fair-the-saint-james-infirmary-blues/

 

[sim667]

do the carthy's/john mccusker/kate bush all count as 'proper' folk?

Im a particulaly keen on martin carthy.

 

[ouchmonkey]

well, to me, if it uses the word 'scene' then its become middle-class If it's just a thing where people hang out listening to a particular kind of music (or whatever) then it isnt a scene.

but then at some tipping point it becomes one?
the further from london the longer it takes?

that's quite a fine differentiation there, i have to say.....