I bought the Fleet Foxes CD at Starbucks yesterday. Reasons why:
1) Recommended on Twitter.
2) Cheap — only $12! Damn right CD sales are affected by pricing.
3) Convenient as hell to snag it while I have my wallet out anyway.
I haven’t listened enough yet to know how I feel about the music. So far my reaction is that I like but don’t love it.
Like much neo-folk, I find Fleet Foxes to be fantastic “contemplative driving” music, and they put on a great live show. Coincidentally, my reaction to Starbucks coffee is that I like but don’t love it!
Thinking about FF as neo-folk makes me realize that the genre is all about auteur-ship. What I mean is that the personality of the leader is the main point, and this is what distinguishes neo-folk from trad folk.
60s Bob Dylan is the definitional artist of neo-folk. John Fahey is the Velvet Underground of the genre. Are Belle and Sebastian in this genre? What about Bon Iver?
Joan Baez is trad folk, not neo.
Interesting classification. I would have said that Belle and Sebastian are more typical of the brit-ska approach of “invite as many people as you can to keep them out of the UB40 lines” – however, it has never stopped being Stuart Murdoch’s project. Neutral Milk Hotel has been described as “whomever Jeff Mangum was currently staying with”. Definitely Bon Iver.
Based on this classification, I’d also be tempted to throw in lo-fi artists like Loney Dear and Guided by Voices.
Good album but they released (in Europe only I think) a great EP this spring. Anyway fantastic live band.
Maybe there’s also a wussiness test for neo-folk. An act has to be a little wussy and uptight to get in there. If they’re too manly they have to be rock or country.
So the EP is better than the CD, jerome? That makes sense — the FF stuff I’ve been hearing on blogs is different and better more moving than the stuff I bought at Starbucks.
My own view is that the only true neo-folk is made with synthesizers, and that post-rock is a better use for the instruments of youth than are just garage sale-ing them off.
My mp3 player pulled up “carrie waltz” and “the frog in the well” on shuffle today, and they both shuffled in very nicely, as I drove in a rented beetle to a hearing out of town.
BwAHAHAHAHA! Insanely great line, Bob. I am definitely going to reuse it.
This is neofolktronica:
http://ccmixter.org/files/gurdonark/17108
Needless to say, the guitar is a synth-sequenced sample.
yes the EP is definitively a better deal. Trackisting is:
sun giant
drops in the river
english house
mykonos
innocent son
I think all the songs are not on the album. the sequencing of the tracks is also perfect. Look forward to check them live again.
anything Neo, including Neo from the Matrix, has the potential to be annoying. It’s a hurdle. Whoah.
And 12 bucks is cheap? When it gets to 5, I’m there.