In this odd, hodge-podge genre, which bands would you say are the essentials?

of the ones I have heard

Ensiferum- The first 4 albums
Wintersun - S/T
Finntroll - Jaktens Tid
Eluvietie - Slania
Falconer - any album with Blad singing. Have yet to hear a bad Falconer album imo

Skyclad

Skyclad - Prince of the Poverty Line
Ulver - Bergtatt
Primordial - To The Nameless Dead
Cruachan - The Middle Kingdom
Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja or Verisäkeet
Agalloch - The Mantle
Orphaned Land - Mabool
Falkenbach - Ok nefna tysvar ty

I guess those the significant folk metal albums that come to mind.

In no particular order:

Korpiklaani
Tyr
Turisas
Wilderun
Lyriel
Wuthering Heights
Heidevolk
Amaseffer
Dalriada
Avven
Kalevala
Nachtgeschrei

Think we've gone a bit past the "essential" now. >_>

Equilibrium's Sagas and Bathory's Blood On Ice (if it counts). Darkest Era's The Last caress and Midnattsol's Where Twilight Dwells probably aren't essential, but are 2 of my favorites.

Well, as Skyclad was already told -the first and probably best Folk Metal band ever -, I'd add the first works of Vintersorg, also Arkona, Alkonost, first one of Elvenking, 2 first of In Extremo or something like "Arcanum" or "Caledonia" from Suidakra

Written by IronAngel on 19.12.2012 at 21:01

Think we've gone a bit past the "essential" now. >_>

Maybe, but what is "essential", and how much?

Fair enough, here is a shorter list:

Korpiklaani
Tyr
Turisas
Heivedolk

Written by Night Theater on 22.12.2012 at 11:03

Maybe, but what is "essential", and how much?

I would say essential albums are those of the utmost importance that are necessary to know if you want to claim you know and listen to a genre. It's a mix of historical significance, initial reception and later recognition, numerical popularity and what can be objectively gauged of quality. For example, the importance of Bergtatt or Prince of the Poverty Line are unquestionable as genre-defining and universally recognized landmarks, even if you don't like them at all. You wouldn't be taken seriously if you didn't know them and presumed to say something about folk metal. A generic viking metal album from 2008 (Heidevolk's Walhalla Wacht, which seems to be their hour of glory) isn't exactly in the same league.

I'm not a folk metal expert so I can't comment on your choices. Turisas' first album might make it. Or maybe the second one, I don't know. Korpiklaani have mass-produced the same album over and over again, so it's hard to point anything there as essential. Especially since they've moved in a lot more generic direction and contributed very little to the development of the genre. I'd pick their sophomore if I had to. But I first heard them as Shaman, and I might actually pick either of those albums. They were fairly original and authentic, before they chose the easy and accessible path opened for them by others' commercial success.

for someone getting started in folk, Kivenkataja by Moonsorrow and the first Ensiferum are essential imho. this topic is getting a bit off-topic as many bands that are mentioned are definitely not essential.

Written by IronAngel on 22.12.2012 at 11:33

Written by Night Theater on 22.12.2012 at 11:03

Maybe, but what is "essential", and how much?

I would say essential albums are those of the utmost importance that are necessary to know if you want to claim you know and listen to a genre. It's a mix of historical significance, initial reception and later recognition, numerical popularity and what can be objectively gauged of quality. For example, the importance of Bergtatt or Prince of the Poverty Line are unquestionable as genre-defining and universally recognized landmarks, even if you don't like them at all. You wouldn't be taken seriously if you didn't know them and presumed to say something about folk metal. A generic viking metal album from 2008 (Heidevolk's Walhalla Wacht, which seems to be their hour of glory) isn't exactly in the same league.

I'm not a folk metal expert so I can't comment on your choices. Turisas' first album might make it. Or maybe the second one, I don't know. Korpiklaani have mass-produced the same album over and over again, so it's hard to point anything there as essential. Especially since they've moved in a lot more generic direction and contributed very little to the development of the genre. I'd pick their sophomore if I had to. But I first heard them as Shaman, and I might actually pick either of those albums. They were fairly original and authentic, before they chose the easy and accessible path opened for them by others' commercial success.

Again, it depends on what one means by "essential". You can know about a genre, (or anything, music or not), and know about it totally. You can know about, and some folk metal - it doesn't mean you have to know all of it. If you're claiming to know "it all", by definition, you would need to know it totally.

Historical significance: in a million years time (if humanity exists - and exists in this state of consciousness, as it is), we can't be too fixed on saying that the genre founders are the only essential bands in the genre. The bands I listed have their place.

Initial reception and later reception: We need to be careful here. Black Sabbath was panned when it first released it's albums; fans, though, ate it up. Just because one, or many - or all - deem it bad, doesn't necessarily make it so. As for later reception, appeal to mass - or any percentage - appeal is still a fallacy. Unless you are merely saying "it's popular (among the masses, or certain groups)" and leaving it at that, then you have a point... but what is the point of the claim? You'd need to link it to something - as you no-doubt are, but, let's continue.

Numerical popularity: Here you can make a fallacy. What makes it good? One fan, two fans, three fans; basically, at one number do you make it "essential"? 1,558,492 fans? That's arbitrary. Percentage of population? Same thing; except, you need to factor in relativism here: the population keeps changing in numbers, and this brings in many others factors. Second, numerical popularity is, somewhat, hard to track. Fans in the past had no internet, so they bought albums, Vinyl, etc. At the same time, the world had less population than today. Though, today, many people download songs illegally. There are other problems, but I'll leave it at that.

Objectively gauged of quality: ... hahaha! How do you objectively analyse music? I'm not saying there isn't a way, just asking. Unless you are making certain objective statements such as: Guitarist(1) is making notes(A,B,C), with time signatures(X,Y,Z).

Quote:
You wouldn't be taken seriously if you didn't know them and presumed to say something about folk metal

By something, you actually, can; it depends if you are speaking about it totally - again my first argument.

Quote:
Korpiklaani have mass-produced the same album over and over again, so it's hard to point anything there as essential.

Not really. Yeah, their stuff is similar, but it's not *the* same thing over and over. If we take the aforementioned arguments and bin them for a second, I would say that you could say one of them is essential, as, just because it's "all the same" (my words, abstracted from yours), it doesn't mean none would be (not saying you are or not saying so).

The essentials? Depends on what people mean. should we fro example include the so called "viking metal" bands along,since many bands with this label often also get lumped togheter with folkmetal? Should we state essential albums that shows the varity of folk metal? Or should we just state the albums that people who are into the gengre generally thinks of when mentioning folk metal?

I won't go too much in depth about those separate issues at the moment. But however you want to pin down the definition of "essential" it's clear it's something different from "good." If someone new to a genre asks what the essentials are, then the answer he's looking for has to do with established, respected albums that can't be fairly dismissed. If someone asks you for the essentials of British literature, Chaucer and Shakespeare are going to be on that list whether you personally prefer some best-selling Ken Follett. If you asked me to name the classics of doom metal, I wouldn't name some unsigned Bandcamp group even if I liked them more than Pentagram. It's not really about total knowledge: I know very little about folk metal and British literature. It's more about basic knowledge.

I don't presume to have a formula for evaluating the objective quality of music. But by talking about bands, recommending them, evaluating them for ourselves, and by the very decision to listen to the same album twice, we presuppose an objective basis for taste. I'm happy to explain the full range of my arguments elsewhere, but I think we can agree a refined taste can generally tell high quality apart from personal preference. That doesn't mean the listening audience will evaluate the music the same way at all times, of course. "Objective" doesn't mean "unchanging" or "perceived identically by everyone", it just means the chain of causation has some basis in the real world.

Either way, I'm not saying the bands you chose can't be defended. Maybe several of them are good choices. I was just trying to steer the topic towards the direction the title and original post seem to suggest: to compile a list of the fundamental, basic folk metal albums everyone would do well to know. He didn't ask for our personal favorites, after all.

Good answers, and I agree.

What is esentioan ...... well for me those are Halgadom 2 accustic albums, that is Ulver folk album, Carved in Stone what is good german folk music/metal band, czceh band Silent Stream Of Goldless Elegy , also Antigone - ''Be Realybės'' those albums did nt changed for me, many was relised, but I still stick whit those , there might eb some more, but folk for me, I prefere celtic or germanic (remeber english, scotish, dutch, germans, scandinavs are GERMANS) orgin folk albums, also Atrocity - Calling The Rain good one

Written by IronAngel on 18.12.2012 at 19:12

Skyclad - Prince of the Poverty Line
Ulver - Bergtatt
Primordial - To The Nameless Dead
Cruachan - The Middle Kingdom
Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja or Verisäkeet
Agalloch - The Mantle
Orphaned Land - Mabool
Falkenbach - Ok nefna tysvar ty

I guess those the significant folk metal albums that come to mind.

Pretty much this, plus a Windir and maybe an Arkona (leading the Slavonic movement).