On Sun Mar 30 2008, andie nachgeborene wrote:
>> Our problem is we mostly don't like those forms and rarely listen to
>> them when we're not in a crowd.
>
> Sez you.
Are you saying folks songs have mass popularity today?
Because if you're not, you're not disputing the point: we don't write popular new folks songs for crowd use because folk songs are not popular right now. They're a niche taste. And you are definately the exception that proves the rule: your taste is both niche and archival.
Not that there's anything wrong with that from an individual point of view. The ballad form is a fascinating study. Listen all you want. But it sounds like if someone wrote a great anti-war folk song today even you wouldn't have heard it since IIRC you don't cite any folk singers singing today. All the people you cite as your faves are old or dead. How would a new singer reach you?
Teaching a crowd a song none of them have heard before is hard. Especially if they are not used to sing alongs because it doesn't happen in the genres they listen to. And it doesn't help if lots of them are allergic to the folk song form because they associate it, fairly or not, with a culture they consider embarassing.
But it's one of the few forms that work for unified crowd singing (and I don't dispute your argument that they unify crowds). Which brings us back to the original point: the problem is that the best forms for that use are not today popular forms. Given that, it's no mystery no new popular ones are being created. If they're created, they won't be popular. And that goes even more if someone created a new hymn or anthem.
But that seems like a secondary problem next to the fact that crowd protests seem pretty damned beat in themselves these days. If there's one thing the Iraq War has taught us, it's that you can mount an amazing crowd -- half a million in the streets of New York on a freezing day before the war even starts -- and it has less effect than signing an signing email petition.
I don't think it's the boring old songs we use that has made crowd protest so listless. It's rather the evidence of its mind-boggling impotence.
Michael