There are more indie folk bands out there than you can shake a stick at. But most hipsters and indie kids would sooner die than admit to liking a contemporary folk artist or modern day singer-songwriter. Why is that?

Fans of indie rock have never been exclusive to mainstream rock, so I just want to know why it should be so with indie folk. I don't even think the differences between the two are as substantial as they are with rock. The only non-indie folk artist I ever hear mentioned here is Bob Dylan.

I mean, there is such a huge, extended mass of modern folk artists, venues, festivals, etc. Yet indie folk fans won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Thousands of struggling singer-songwriters are releasing new material every year, while Devendra Banhart, Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine etc are selling thousands of albums, just because their names are flung around in indie circles? Why?

.....I actually like Iron & Wine a great deal and it has nothing to do with the name being tossed around in the "indie" circle as I have never been nor participated in a "indie" circle, it's because I dig the music.

Half of me agrees, and the other half hasn't a clue as to what you're talking about.

I dont know.

my problem is that I dont know of hardly any modern folk groups

I love folk music though.

let me try to clear this.... are you saying that people buy only the most popular folk artists, refuse to dig deeper into the genre but at the same time don't admit to listening to the popular ones?

i'm not sure i got it...

Is gender that important? I mean, when I listen to someone I don't really think "Cool, this guy sings indie folk songs. I must buy this cd". Sufjan for me isn't even folk, or at least in the tradicional sense of the word. He released one of the best albums that I had the opportunity to hear this year, I don't really care about labels and all that, I just like the music.

And some of you give too much importance to the "indie circles". That either applies to those who like everything that Pitchfork praises that week and to those who judge and bash artists without even hearing them just because they're getting some great reviews.

I'm not really getting you here. I've never heard of Devendra Banhart, I've heard of but haven't really heard too much Iron & Wine and personally I don't really consider Sufjan Stevens folk. Sure some of his stuff maybe, but not really.
I mean are you talking folk like Woody Guthrie folk? Joan Baez? Joni Mitchell?
As for more contemporary artists, what's the difference between indie-folk and folk music? It's all the same to me. To me indie just means they're on an independent label. For instance Ani Difranco, I would consider her contemporary folk, but she is also pretty damn independent.

Your logic about why only handful of "indie folk" artists are especially popular at the moment can apply to any genre. Thre are thousands of new wave, nu metal, instrumental rock, hip hop artists, .....

It is from my experience that when a small label (like Asmatic Kitty or even Sub Pop) has an artist who sells hundereds of thousands of records and international exposure, there is something worth taking a look at. That is exposure earned by quality and word of mouth.

It isn't like a major label sticking Stellastarr or the Redwalls in every magazine and every support slot they can trying to build exposure. These companies have huge resources to influence the market.

When a small company releases a record and it sells big then the main resources at play are luck/timing and the quality of the record.

Generalise much?

j.

I'm just as confused as the rest of you. I tried my best to pose some kind of question that maybe someone had some insight on.

It just seems to me like...two extremely similar kinds of music, but they have completely separate fan bases and aren't connected with each other at all. It's like they may as well be from different time periods. Some people listen to lots and lots of indie folk but wouldn't know a single artist that played at the Folk Alliance or Little Folk festivals.

It's like there is this great divide between two extremely similar types of music, just based off of culture and social groups. I thought maybe someone would have some kind of explanation for this.

I think this is really hard for me to understand because of my perspective. My Dad is extremely heavily involved in the Austin, actually Texas, folk scene. He goes to 5-10 shows a week and is probably friends with over 300 singer-songwriters in the area. Point is, I am exposed to all this and it is almost an every day part of my life. I am always hearing this or that folk artist, and hearing all these names thrown around with my Dad and his friends. Then I hear a lot of the stuff being touted as indie folk sensations. I already mentioned the names of some of them. The music is like, practically the same, in many respects. But the people who listen to it couldn't be more different.

It's not really that important. If noone really understands what I'm saying...don't worry, I don't either I guess. I wasn't really expecting anyone to be able to alleviate my confusion; this is a rather complicated issue. I'm certainly not saying it doesn't exist elsewhere, either. In fact, electronic music and country music both have similar phenomena in relation to their indie counterparts.

Indie folk is a Keyboard Band.

Buffalohed, I think the word you maybe looking for is generation gap. Sure there are some older indie fans and younger folk fans, but I wouldn't be surprised if the differences in the fan bases mostly run along age differences.

People just listen to whatever bullshit Fork and other publications tell them to listen to, simple as that. How else do you think Animal Collective have a career?

I've never actually met anybody who talked about terms like "indie" or publications like Pitchfork like they mattered or influenced degree of coolness. I'm skeptical that such people exist. It's sort of like people who talk about how "punk" or "metal" something is...I hear that they're out there, but I've never seen it. Most people I know listen to whatever the fuck they enjoy, and I suspect that people who don't like stuff like Sufjan or Animal Collective or whatever generate the myth of an obsessive indie culture the same way Fox News generates the myth of a war on Christmas.

In the end, it just pisses me off because I love Pink Floyd, The Who, Outkast, Talking Heads, Cat Stevens, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, but if I mention the Mountain Goats I occasionally have to suffer through some retard's "oh, you're one of those people" schticks.

If Pitchfork gives something a positive review thousands of people download the album. Animal Collective had been around for years making that same shitty formless music no one would listen to without laughing at, and as soon as Pitchfork jumped on the bandwagon everyone was in love with it. People don't admit they got it from Pitchfork because that would be embarrassing.

i will listen to any folk music that King tells me to.

Even pitchfork used to hate this shit:

http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-review ... atee.shtml

Joan Baez first album

Maybe it is the generation gap. You all have heard me complain about young people liking Johnny Cash, and heard my arguments about it. It is kind of the same thing. A lot of people hear the folk Pitchfork promotes, and all of a sudden they like folk. Folk has been around a lot longer than pitchfork, and Iron & Wine is not the original folk artist. It seems like we are so limited on what we listen to because of the media. Granted we aren't as bad as the whole top 40 Nickleback population, which is much much larger than the Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire population.

I suppose the moral of this post is that no matter what music culture you are a part of or which group of peers you take musical advice from, you are always limiting yourself in some degree. True musical open-mindedness might be just as rare as true political open-mindedness. Maybe that is what I'm trying to say. Folk has nothing to do with it. It was just the most recent example that caused me to think on the matter.

Joni Mitchell's Blue