The Beat Surrender

No less than five years ago, for young adolescents to admit to liking folk music would have been to commit musical suicide in front of your peers. Folk, from my perspective, anyway, was something best left to those 40-something Dad’s, or Southern American hillbillies.

So why, all of a sudden, is the British music scene in the midst a folk revolution? Over the last 18 months or so, it’s suddenly become quite cool to admire the humble musings of Dylan or Cash, and the likes of James Blunt, James Morrison, and even Jack Johnson have been launching their own onslaughts on the British charts.

Johnny Cash (pictured), in particular, saw a marked rise in record sales last year, thanks, in no part, to the success of the Cash biopic ‘Walk the Line’. With the cinematic success bringing the magic of the ‘Man in Black’ to the masses, Cash saw album sales increase 700% after the film’s release.

To say that Cash’s success was simply down to the film would be naïve and also unfair to the man, however. Cash has released, in the last decade, perhaps some of his best material with the critically acclaimed ‘American Recordings’, for which he won numerous awards, most notably a Grammy for the video for ‘Hurt’, taken from ‘American IV: The Man Comes Around’.

The turnaround has given the Cash brand a much needed boost. After being in the doldrums of recording artists in the 80’s and 90’s following poor record sales, Cash, following his acclaimed releases, is now looked up at as one of the coolest men from the music scene – a no nonsense, passionate and all-round pure rock ‘n’ roll master.

It’s not just Johnny Cash either. Bob Dylan has been riding the crest of a wave following three strong releases in the last decade, climaxing in the just released ‘Modern Times’, which went into the UK album charts at number 3. This, and ‘Love and Theft’ released in 2001, were Dylan’s most successful albums in terms of sales for 20 years.

Dylan’s album success has been followed by recognition by music’s coolest icon at the moment, the Apple iPod. Switch on your TV’s tonight and you’ll probably see those black silhouettes dancing to Dylan in the way they’ve already danced to the likes of U2, the Vines, and other ‘cooler’ contemporaries before – marking a major step forward for Dylan in reaching out to the younger demographic.

James Blunt, KT Tunstall, Katie Melua, Jack Johnson and David Gray all had one of the top 40 selling albums in 2005. And the year culminated in Nizlopi, the previously unknown acoustic-folk twosome from Leamington Spa, taking the coveted Christmas Number 1 with the ‘JCB Song’. And 2006 is set to continue the trend, with the likes of Sandie Thom and James Morrison achieving number 1 singles and albums, respectively.

So why the renaissance? I would suggest that music fans are turning to folk once more as a remedy to the current pop scene, which has been infiltrated by scuzzy, lively and edgy indie bands trying to make the big-time. In contrast to this, folk offers the listener chilled, calm and meaningful music, which is lyrically weighted and musically smooth.

The success of all things folk and acoustic may also be down to the boom of older music buyers. According to figures produced by the BPI, the over 40’s contributed nearly 35% of album purchases in 2005, and this trend is set to continue until this demographic account for half of all albums bought.

This trend has coincided with the increased availability of CD’s at comparatively low prices. Not only can you readily go into a high street record store and get the album of choice nowadays, but supermarkets have jumped on the bandwagon as well. Now, whilst you pick up your groceries, you can pick up your favourite artist that you just listened to in the car a few minutes ago on Radio 2, for under a tenner. In fact, statistics suggest that a quarter of all CD’s purchased pass through supermarket checkouts.

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