Folk Music

I never gave much thought to folk music, but in the last few months it seems as if all the new artists I'm falling in love with are folk! Modern folk, anti-folk, alternative folk, classic folk... Here are a few of them.


The Civil Wars is our newest find. For those of you who listened to CCM about five years ago you might remember Joy Williams. Well, she's teamed up with John Paul White and created The Civil Wars, which is beautiful, peaceful folk music, with lots of harmony and twanging guitars!


Iron and Wine is also beautiful folk music. I haven't listened to all their stuff, but Jezebel and Flightless Bird, American Mouth are gorgeous! (And you might recognize Flightless Bird if you are a Twilight fan... it played during Bella and Edward's dance in the end of the movie.)


Regina Spektor is classified as "anti-folk" which is really just glorified and classy folk music. Her newest album, "Far", is filled with some beautiful folky songs.


Jon Foreman I've loved for a long time now. You might know him from his alternative CCM rock band, Switchfoot. But he released four EPs last year, titles "Summer", "Fall", "Winter" and "Spring", all filled with soft, sensitive folk music. It's a side of him you'd have never guessed.


Fleet Foxes sound like folk music and medieval ballads and mistrals and The Beach Boys all at the same time. Ragged Wood, the third track on their album, is one of my favorite songs ever.


The Innocence Mission has been around for a long time. Their older music sounds rather like Sixpence None the Richer, but two of their newest albums, "We Walked In Song" and "Befriended" are filled with soft, easy, zenish, folky music.


Lucy Wainwright Roche is another awesome folk singer. Half-sister to Rufus Wainwright and daughter of Suzze Roche, she has two beautiful solo EPs out.


Sufjan Stevens can't really be confined to a genre. His albums are filled with every sort of music you can imagine. But "Come On, Feel the Illinoise," a cd entirely inspired by the state of Illinois, is full of some gorgeous folk music, as well as country music, big band stuff, instrumental stuff and songs that just sound more like UFOs then anything else.

I fail at describing music obviously, but all you really need to know is that all these artists are magnificent, and you should listen to them... NOW.