Since it was first awarded in 1992 the Mercury Prize has become one of the UK's best know music prizes with it's high profile awards show being covered by the BBC.  Set up as an alternative to the Music Industry dominated Brit Awards the Mercury shortlist is eagerly anticipated because of it's genre spanning nominations.
The prize itself? How does £20,000 sound? That and the honour of being nominated of course.  Last years winner was Speech Debelle, which surprised a lot of pundits.  This year's shortlist was published today and includes some interesting choices.

• Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions
• Corinne Bailey Rae – The Sea
• Dizzee Rascal – Tongue n' Cheek
• Kit Downes Trio – Golden
• Foals – Total Life Forever
• I Am Kloot – Sky at Night
• Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
• Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
• Paul Weller – Wake Up the Nation
• Villagers – Becoming a Jackal
• Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
• The xx – xx

The first thing that sprang out from that list was that unlike previous years there are 3 folk acts nominated.  Rather than the "Token Folkie" which in recent years has been Lisa Hannigan, Fionn Regan & Laura Marling.  This year Villagers, Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling in her second nomination.
Other notable nominations are the supposedly 'underground' xx which didn't surprise me at all, their album is one of my favourites.  And a 1994 nominee Paul Weller for his 10th album.  

This years shortlist is as interesting as ever with a range of genre's being spanned from Hard Rock to Jazz & Folk to Pop and the winner will be announced on the 7th September.

Stornoway, A Band On The Run - From Genre

Fuel Up (on Later With Jools Holland)

Stornoway are a band running from genre.  Genre has it's gifts and it's hindrances.  It can help people understand your music, it can help people who like similar bands discover you, it can help critics classify you. OK well that last one may not be a plus side but lets face it people like to classify stuff.  Be it types of South American tree, umbrella or in our case new bands. 

Stornoway have recently thoroughly disowned the folk labels that were thrust upon them from everyone from the BBC to the NME.  But why have they been pigeon holed into the wave of new folk artists?  Well because their debut album Beachcomber's Windowsill is undeniably folky, that's why.  I mean come on even the album name is folk to the hilt!  The production on the album is reminiscent of the Fleet Foxes and the parallels between contemporaries like Noah & The Whale, Sons of Noel and Adrian and Mumford & Son are their in the instrumentation; featuring songs with banjo riffs a-plenty in We Are The Battery Human,  fiddles in The Coldharbour Road and delicate acoustic guitars in The End of the Movie.  Stylistically they range between folk and the more raucous tracks like Watching Birds. 

I Saw You Blink (Official Video)

So this begs the question, what is folk music?  Well what does it bring to mind for you? For some when they hear the word folk they think traditional English folk music (which personally leads me to think of Morris Dancers and Maypoles), others think 60s folk revival.  Well the dictionary definition is as follows:

Folk

• plural noun 1 (also folks) informal people in general. 2 (one’s folks) one’s family, especially one’s parents. 3 (also folk music) traditional music of unknown authorship, transmitted orally. 4 before another noun originating from the beliefs, culture, and customs of ordinary people: folk wisdom.
  — ORIGIN Old English.

So then does modern folk music fit this definition?  Can we call Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons etc Folk?  Well no because we know who wrote their songs, they did.  Is their music traditional?  Well what's traditional? (Lets not go there right now we have enough on our hands with 'Folk'!)  Are they transmitted orally?  No.  We listen to their records.  So is anyone folk?  Arguably not by definition, no.

Zorbing (on Later With Jools Holland)

But who cares?  Stornoway like Marling and the Mumfords are all influenced by folk music, among many other genres.  So we should let Stornoway off with not wanting to be stereotyped as one of these new folk bands.  And their record has something none of the other bands have on theirs.  A Kazoo (on Watching Birds).

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Go listen to the album The Beachcomber's Windowsill now, available on spotify here.  They're also part of my nu-folk spotify playlist, along with a load of other great bands, which can be found here.

The Folk Revival, Revival.

The 1960s saw an unprecedented revival in folk music in the United States, fueled by student culture coming to grips with difficult social issues they felt strongly about.  The discovery of music by American folk musicians such as Woody Guthrie & Pete Seeger, who's politically charged songs resinated as much if not more in the 1960s as they had in the 1930s.  The 60s saw the Folk become intertwined with the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti Vietnam protests.  Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger & Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez & Bob Dylan (pictured left) , and countless others began work on a body of songs that have stood the test of time, discussing the difficult topics of race, social strife and nuclear war.

As the 60s slid into the 70s this revival of the Folk mutated into Folk Rock with bands like The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (pictured right.) blending Folk melody and vocal harmonies with Rock's electric guitars and drums.  By the mid 70s this Folk Rock sound had become a comercialised stereotype of it's self with band's like The Eagles working to the Country/Folk Rock formula.  By the end of the 70s the Folk Revival had petered out and returned to the shaddows.

Mirroring the resurgence in Americ, the British Folk scene gained new momentum with the late Davy Graham (pictured left)astounding listeners with his eastern twinged folk arrangements of Traditional & original compositions.  He pioneered the use of the DADGAD guitar tuning.  Opening a whole new avenue to guitarists in the 60s.
Graham along with groups like Pentangle and other solo artists like Bert Jansch & Nick Drake.

But whereas in America Folk music just sat on the back burner, with hundreds of dedicated Radioshows, Folk slipped from the mainstream in England.  However it's back. The London 'Nu-Folk' scene has spawned a whole slew of Bands that have risen to prominence including Noah & The Whale, Laura Marling (below),

Mumford & Sons, Emmy the Great, Alessi's Ark & Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit to name afew.  Noah & The Whale's 2005 debut album charted at #5 in the UK, While the Mumford & Son's (pictured below) debut charted at #7.  But the charts mearly indicate the trend, the music of this Folk Revival - Revial has been critically acclaimed.  Laura Marling was recently described as 'a female Bob Dylan' - praise doesn't get much higher than that for a songwriter.

I find it interesting to note the influences of these bands.  While London bands like Mumford & Son's draw heavily from American roots music other bands like The Unthanks, from Northumberland, draw from traditional English folk music. I think this resurgence in popularity for this kind of music is great and the diversity of the music being produced is inspiring.


Folk music is dead.  Long live folk music.

Follow this link to listen to a spotify playlist specially compiled for this post!