Industrial Folk Music - Decline and Survival

Decline and Survival

Industrial folk song overlapped with other forms of music from the late 19th century, such as Music hall and popular music and began to disappear as a genre from the mid-20th century as different forms of song provided alternatives and the decline of major industries began to undermine it. However, because of its political associations it has been revived, particularly in times of political and social upheaval such as the 1980s, when anarchist punk band Chumbawamba included several industrial work and protest songs on their English Rebel Songs 1381-1914 album (1988) and the tradition was taken up by folk artists like Billy Bragg. In the United States, arguably the most successful inheritor of the tradition is Bruce Springsteen, often focusing more on industrial decline in songs like "Youngstown" on his 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad. Songs from the tradition continue to be recorded, as in the Grammy nominated Music of Coal: Mining Songs from the Appalachian Coalfields (2007), a two CD compilation and booklet of mining songs.