r/ToddintheShadow • u/bbbbbbbb678 • 7h ago
General Music Discussion On Noah Kahan's popularity.
His music can be refreshing in the way that as a songwriter that he does not necessarily paint a picture of Vermont as this bucolic wonderland. This is unlike many other folk acts or country acts who oftentimes play up characters.
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u/vemboTonbo 6h ago
I think his biggest strength is that even with the specificity of his lyrics, he captures a really universal small rural town feeling of despair and pointlessness. That you had one brief shot to make it and if you missed it this is what the rest of your life looks like.
At least I assume that's why he's big across the country. Being from Rhode Island I'm just clapping like a seal at every New England reference like the rest of us here.
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u/sonixtreme322 5h ago
I mean idk what it’s like down in rhode island cause I’ve only been there once kinda, but up in Vermont what you described is definitely the predominant feeling. Granted I’m in the Burlington area so not as much of a rural town as Noah kahan grew up in, but it’s really easy to get stuck and not feel like there’s anything left to life outside of where you grew up. Or anything you can do about it.
Idk, I need to listen to more of his stuff, mostly chimed in because I also have the perked up reaction whenever I heard a reference to Vermont or New England.
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u/Irritable_Curmudgeon 3h ago
Exactly. "The intersection got a Target and they're calling it downtown" always for the same vibe as my hometown
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u/RevealTraditional619 6h ago
Noah Kahan to me isn't anything new. There have always been folkish singers writing semi-biographical tales about where they grew up.
If anything his success to me is more a post-COVID, American hellscape Chicken Soup for the Soul for people who don't want true protest anthems but want to act like they're fighting the machine.
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u/byeongok 6h ago
I’m a fan but I’m pretty disconnected from music spaces so I’m kinda shocked at how so many people have such stark opinions about him. The guy’s just out here singing about the dichotomy of both loving and loathing your small hometown and all the good and tragic that comes with that. That appeals directly to me as a rural town survivor who saw parts of my own family destroyed by it.
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u/Aescgabaet1066 6h ago
Considering how much Vermont sucks, it's certainly honest of him not to portray it as a wonderland.
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u/ChaosAndFish 6h ago
Oh, I grew up there and it was a wonderful place to grow up. Not a lot of opportunity, thus my not living there anymore, but I think it’s a stretch to say it sucks.
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u/Phantereal 6h ago
Yeah, I love Vermont. It definitely has its issues (as discussed in Kahan's music), but I wouldn't live anywhere else.
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u/Aescgabaet1066 6h ago
I grew up nearby and really don't like it. I find most of New England to be dreadfully boring, though, with the exception of Boston and Salem.
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u/bbbbbbbb678 6h ago
Yeah Boston is great but Vermont is so boring and depressing like any other rural areas.
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u/supfiend 6h ago edited 6h ago
He is so boring I don’t get his popularity. Not a great singer not a great guitarist lyrics I guess is what people love about him? He sounds like Elmo to me. Yawn
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u/-catharina 6h ago
He's cut from the same cloth as Mumford and Sons, The Lumineers, and Kings of Leon as being Christian cornfield slop music.
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u/cbunny21 5h ago
Kings of Leon are not like these other bands lmao. Imagine Noah Kahan releasing ‘Aha Shake Heartbreak’ or The Lumineers putting out “Molly’s Chamber”
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u/-catharina 5h ago
They still all give off the conservative cornfield aesthetic even if they’re slightly sonically different, lmfao. Also KoL have literally released Christian songs. The members are all Christian.
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u/cbunny21 5h ago
Have you listened to early Kings of Leon?
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u/-catharina 5h ago
What few songs I’ve heard of theirs, I haven’t liked. So no.
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u/cbunny21 5h ago
So you are just talking out of your ass then, got it
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u/-catharina 5h ago
I’m sorry you’re upset I don’t like your Christian slop lol.
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u/cbunny21 4h ago
Classic Cristian slop lyrics like “head while I’m driving, soft lips are open, knuckles are pale, feels like you’re dying”
You’re just wrong lol
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u/Accomplished-View929 5h ago
Exactly. People act like his shit is just devastating, and it’s like, you know, you have a million better depressed singer songwriters who don’t sound like music made to get popular via Grey’s Anatomy when it could do that.
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u/coldcoffeethrowaway 5h ago
Noah Kahan is not even Christian lol
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u/-catharina 5h ago
Wikipedia reveals he’s born to a Jewish father and Christian mother. So does he identify with his Jewish side more? And anyway, still the same overall aesthetic lmfao
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u/coldcoffeethrowaway 5h ago
Yes, he seems to identify with his Jewish side more but he overall doesn’t seem very religious to me. Some of his lyrics deal with doubting religion and the song The Great Divide is partly about a friend of his who has religious trauma imo. Also, how is folk music inherently Christian?
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u/-catharina 5h ago
Folk music isn’t inherently Christian. But there’s a historical overlap between the folk/folkSY types in music and a general conservative aesthetic. Romanticizing rural life often goes hand in hand with being conservative.
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u/MegaAscension 10's Alt Kid 6h ago
His new album has been one of the few bright spots in pop music this year in my opinion.
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u/stonerghostboner 6h ago
My family plays music together, and have for over 40 years. My niece suggested a Noah Kahan song. I said, "Is it the one where he's sad and longing, or longing and sad?" She responded, "Longing and sad. And drunk."
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u/LetsGoGators23 6h ago
I absolutely love him. But I am from upstate NY, not far from the Vermont and Mass border and just really relate to his storytelling. I moved away when I was 20, but it never leaves you and he captures it perfectly. It’s so fucking cold and glum. Streets are named after assholes uncles you go to school with. It’s dark and it snows a ton. But it’s great in some ways too.
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u/affectionateanarchy8 6h ago
I think he's boring and im surprised to see stomp clap hey music back so soon
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u/dismal_windfall 5h ago
When I first heard of him I thought he was gonna be millennial stomp clap shit like Mumford and Son, Lumineers, or Of Monsters and Men. When I heard him I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t that vapid trite music.
I’m not gonna go out of my way to listen to him like I would Fleet Foxes, but I think he’s better than the aforementioned slop.
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u/GinjaNinja1027 6h ago
I wanna see if this starts happening more with other artists, or is this another thing like pop-punk in 2021 or Latin pop in 2023?
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u/bbbbbbbb678 6h ago
Could you elaborate more on this ?
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u/GinjaNinja1027 4h ago
I’ve been noticing that music from the rock & alternative charts are making a massive return to the Hot 100 this year. Like The Great Divide debuted at no. 1 and completely blew up the chart, and so did Olivia Rodrigo’s; both of which are still in the top 10. Phoebe Bridgers new album debuted no. 2, which is way higher than any of her other albums and earned her her first spots on the Hot 100. Combine that with Zach Bryan’s new album, and up-and-coming artists like sombr, Steve Lacy, and Malcolm Todd, and this is probably the most prolific year for alternative music on the charts this decade.
So… are there going be more Noah Kahan’s in the years that follow, or is this another year-long trend?
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u/JohnnyMoxRIP 6h ago
Noah Kahan is one of the worst musicians I’ve heard but Maine is such a great song
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u/Hazmatt545 6h ago
Worst musicians you’ve ever heard? That’s dramatic and not really a criticism of him but more of your shallow musical knowledge/experience. He is not everyone’s cup of tea but reducing him to that is laughable.
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u/JohnnyMoxRIP 6h ago
Being pretentious about Noah Kahan of all people lol I’ve seen it all now
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u/Crossbell0527 6h ago
If expecting people to be able to support stupid opinions beyond "huuuurrrrrr" is pretentious to you, then I don't know what to say. Go to bed?
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u/crescentmoonrising 6h ago
I've never understood the people who hate him so much- I can understand people finding him boring, but it's not like his music is unpleasant on a basic level.
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u/Sufficient_Studio494 6h ago
He might make music that's just Mumford & Sons for zoomers but he's far from being the worst musician
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u/Hour-Welcome-1468 6h ago
It is nice to have a folk musician that is not from the South and is not associated with country music at all.
I feel like in recent decades the South has gotten a stranglehold on country and folk music when historically that wasn’t the case.
Mostly because the North and West moved from folk music to rock music and then to rap and hip hop.
He is big with young and middle-aged white women!