These are the records every complete record collection should have, even if you aren't necessarily a folk fan. These records define folk to some degree, but represent the core qualities of what folk has to offer to an even more significant one. These aren't my favorite records in folk - and really anyone who gave you this list as their top 25 is either lying to save face or works for Rolling Stone - but they are all five-star classics that will forever be cited as the fundamental works of the genre. And, of course, many if not most of them are my favorite folk albums, most notably Astral Weeks.
Maybe the hardest part of narrowing Folk down to 25 core records is the Dylan dilemma. Bob Dylan towers over everyone else in the genre (and quite nearly pop music in general), and from 1963 to 1966 he put out five inarguable classics - each of which could easily rank as the greatest work of any artist. How do you reconcile the importance of these records with the need to include a broader range of music in the overall group? Including all five seems ludicrous considering the purpose of this set. Consequently, I've only included one of these records, along with Blood on the Tracks, a later Dylan album that is sufficiently different enough to warrant inclusion - I also happen to think it's the easiest way into Dylan's catalog for the uninitiated.
One last note on "folk": this is a much more amorphous genre than hip hop. While the latter genre might have some bleed-over into R&B and electronic music, folk overlaps with rock, country, bluegrass, the blues, jazz, soul music, and even electronic. (And technically isn't hip hop folk music anyway?) To get around this, I've instituted an "I know it when I see it" policy that I hope we can all agree on. I've included the blues in this category because its history is intertwined with folk traditions and exposure (Lomax, etc.), and many of these blues artists were really folk musicians who had their music racialized. This leaves a lot of blues out (and knocks out a little space for more "folk" records), but I think this current set is the right mix of the two barely divided genres. On the other hand, I've excluded bluegrass simply because I think it fits better in the country list. This list also comes with the caveat that many of the most influential artists in folk's early years never really put out a great LP and their comps are more significant historically than as recognized classics (Leadbelly and Bessie Smith come immediately to mind). There is a TON of blues and folk missing here that requires a deeper dig (or even a not-so-deep dig, like Taj Mahal or Howlin' Wolf), but that's not the purpose of this core selection. If you don't like it (or better yet if you do like it) let me know in the comment section.
These are the 25 records in folk music that deserve to be canonized.
