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Folk punk

Folk punk (known in its early days as rogue folk)[1] is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was popularized in the early 1980s by The Pogues in England, and by Violent Femmes in the United States. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in that decade. In more recent years, its subgenres Celtic punk and Gypsy punk have experienced some commercial success.

Folk punk

Rogue folk

Early 1980s, United Kingdom and United States

Characteristics[edit]

Folk punk is related to and/or influenced by various styles such as Celtic punk, gypsy punk, anti-folk, and alternative country. Folk punk is also linked with DIY punk scenes, and bands often perform in house venues in addition to more traditional spaces.[2]


Folk-punk musicians may perform their own compositions in the style of punk rock, but using additional folk instruments, such as mandolins, accordions, banjos, and/or violins.[3] Folk punk possesses a rich history of progressive and leftist political views, involving topics like race, class, feminism, anti-fascism, animal rights, queerness, and anarchism.[2]

History[edit]

Precursors[edit]

The earliest known relationship between punk rock and folk music is that of Woody Guthrie, often known as one of the first punks, who sung songs about anti-fascism and the conditions faced by working-class people in the 1950s and 1960s.[4][5][6][7]


Many proto-punk bands, including the Velvet Underground and T. Rex were influenced by such folk artists as Bob Dylan, Donovan, and the Fugs.

1970s[edit]

In 1977 London-born singer-songwriter Patrik Fitzgerald released his first EP titled Safety-Pin Stuck in My Heart which was subtitled "a love song for punk music". The titular song from the EP still remains Fitzgerald's most famous work and acted as one of the pioneering releases for folk punk by combining punk rock imagery with acoustic guitar and vocals.

1980s[edit]

Formed in Milwaukee in 1981, Violent Femmes was one of the first and most commercially successful bands to fuse punk and folk, though much of their influence came more from early art rock acts like the Velvet Underground.[8] During the 1980s other punk and hardcore bands would pepper their albums with acoustic tracks or inject folksier sounds, notably the Dead Milkmen, Hüsker Dü, and Articles of Faith. An influential album was the punk-inflected folk-country album released in 1984 when psychedelic hardcore band the Meat Puppets switched their style for their seminal release Meat Puppets II.[9]


In the UK, the fusion of folk and punk was pioneered by the London-based Irish band the Pogues, formed in 1982, whose mixture of original songs and covers of established folk singers, many performed in a punk style, led to three top ten albums in the UK, a number two single in "Fairytale of New York" (1987) with Kirsty McColl, and a string of top ten singles and albums in Ireland.[10] The Pogues' lead singer Shane MacGowan had played in London punk outfit the Nips, originally known as the Nipple Erectors.[11]


The pioneers of a more distinctively English brand of folk punk were the Men They Couldn't Hang, founded in 1984. Also important was the Oysterband, who developed from playing English Céilidh music with a fast and harder rock sound from around 1986.[3] the Levellers, founded in 1988, made less use of traditional melodies but more use of acoustic instruments, including violins.[3] Several other prominent members of the English punk scene in the early 1980s were also experimenting with folk influences. Early demos by Chumbawamba feature the accordion and the trumpet, though it would take them over 20 years to transition into a full-fledged folk act. Attila the Stockbroker began entertaining punk audiences accompanied by mandola in 1986, and is still performing. Probably the most successful figure associated with English 1980s folk punk is singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, who enjoyed a series of hits in the 1980s and became a distinct influence on later folk punk acts.[12]

Cowpunk

Protest song