Codes and Conventions of "Folk" Music Genre

The Folk music genre, which goes back as far as the 1950's has become popular over the years. Artists such as Bob Dylan, The Kinks and Nick Drake brought it to the nations attention in the 70's/80's and now Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons, Noah and the Whale and many more artists are bringing it back into the international charts.

The good thing about Folk music is that it is not mainstream and "artificial" The music is acoustic and the vocals unsynthesised and pure, Folk artists play their music not for fame but because they just enjoy doing it. The interesting thing about Folk artists is that the audience picks them, they are not forced upon us by the media as superficial pop stars such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.

"There wasnt really a sense of ambition at all. Lets be honest, nobody picks up a banjo to become a pop star" (Mumford and Sons).

As every generation finds its own way to rebel against the mainstream pop culture, There has been many Iconic and historical shifts in the definition of "cool" from Hippies, Punks, Mods, dividing into subcultures such as New romantics, goth, ravers, chavs, scenesters emo and hundreds more of so called "stereotypes". So in the midst of this social media in the 21st century these divisions have become meaningless and there is no longer such a thing as Youth culture, its just a confusing array of sounds, odd fashions, and lifestyle choices empowered by the use of Social Networking. So how exactly do you rebel when anything goes? You could lay down your laptop, phones and ipods, Pick up an instrument and make something real. This is how Folk finds its way to rebel.

"I don't have Twitter or Facebook. It ruins a romantic idea, which might just be an illusion, a sense of depth or continuity. The world is getting so small, and mass production is getting so big. Everything is in danger of becoming the same." (Laura Marling)

Folk artists accept that what they are doing is not new, they do not try to portray themselves as something so unique and "out there" because in all honesty its all been done before in all music genres, nothing is brand new and exiting anymore, a new artist has always taken styles and inspirations from an old artist, wether or not they choose to admit it.

"About a year later, I listened to a Kinks album and realised that, we weren't all that original, and that it had all been done before" (Mumford and sons)

"Folk and traditional music always needs new blood, needs to continually renew itself or it dies, and nobody wants that. It's bringing back a sense of humour and inclusivity. Traditional music is passed through generations, so that in a sense what they are doing is not Folk, But neither was Dylan. " (Eliza carthy)

Indie Folk music videos are more creative and artistic than more mainstream music genre's. The editing is subtle often with colour and saturations, text, slight animations or patterns used but it in small doses. There isn't a direct narrative or relationship between lyrics and image. However there is a relationship between music and image artists will be shown playing/singing but not throughout the entire video. The artist is not the main part of the video it's more about the imagery.