Goodwin's Theory - Genre Characteristics - Folk

Folk Music

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.

Folk music tend to have an older target audience due to the style in which they do things.

Dark shadows are presented to show the feeling of what the artist is saying and to show the emotions of the song and the artist. The use of light is also what makes a folk music video a folk music video. light is used to put the artist in the spotlight , emphasise the shadows around him/her and bring all the attention towards them.

Exaggerated music playing is also one of the conventions of folk music video. this evokes the audience more and makes them feel more involved as the artist is getting into their role which makes the emotion more believable. 

Close-ups on artist and instrument will be to show how emotionally the artist is and promote the meaning of the song in more depth.

Editing tends to use a lot of black and white in the videos to try and make the whole environment to the song more daunting and eerie from the shadows that are used. 

An Example of Folk Music is Little Lion Man - Mumford and Sons