Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (2007)

I really do like stories like the story behind Bon Iver's debut album. It seems to be quite a common story with musicians, where they have tried everything they have in breaking it in the music business and just when they're almost ready to give up, something changes everything. I don't think anyone, least of all, Justin Vernon himself, could've predicted what kind of success would follow this album. While living in South Carolina, Vernon fell ill and was very frustrated with songwriting and his life. He travelled to Wisconsin, where he was originally from, to be alone with his thoughts. He hunted his own food and was completely isolated from other people. While there in the cabin, he wrote songs, first without lyrics, that became later this album with added lyrics about lost love and feelings of mediocrity. This melancholic album then unexpectedly proofed very popular and made Bon Iver one of the biggest names in the indie circles.
Vernon first published this album by himself, but it was then picked up by Jagjaguwar for broader circulation. I love it when this happens in music business as there are so many musicians and bands, some of them absolutely brilliant, who never get noticed. At the same time, there are loads and loads of artists and bands that get lots of visibility just because someone has invested a lot of money to them even if their music is not that great. Just by listening to some warm-up acts in London proofs that sometimes when marketing is there, even some horribly untalented people can make it to big venues, while some absolutely brilliant acts never make it out of pub corners.

The album begins with lo-fi sounding acoustic song Flume, which is one of my favourite songs on the album, because it sounds so honest. There are no strange studio gimmicks in the song, it's just the brilliant songwriting and Vernon's talent that create this otherwordly sound. Lump Sum makes the sound a lot bigger with insane church choir style echo in the vocals. This is closer to the sound that Bon Iver adopted on his later albums. I'm much more of a fan for the simple and intimate. Skinny Love was the biggest hit from the album and I can see why. It has one of the catchiest melodies on the album and the sounds are again genuinely stripped to acoustic basics. The Wolves (Act I and II) slows things down even more. The vocals are doubled throughout the song. Blindsided brings in some interesting electronic elements. Even if the majority of the song is acoustic, the small electronic sounding guitar bits make all the difference. Creature Fear has some echoey vocal harmonies that remind me of Fleet Foxes songs. Goes to show that the latter half of 00s was a golden time for the new coming of folk. Team is the first song, where the drums properly come in and there's even slight overdrive in the bassline and guitars. As a song though, this is basically just an interlude leading to the song For Emma, which has some of the biggest sounds on the album. The album ends with re:stacks which is more than six minutes of lighter than light expression. I love the vocals in this one.

In a proper debut album fashion, the music video for Skinny Love is basically like a home video. It has scenes from the nature, trains and fast forwarded camerawork. In some scenes you see the face of a young woman, probably referring to Emma, the woman of the album title. My favourite bits are when a man is walking with snow shows in thick snow. This is probably what Vernon was doing himself while living in the Wisconsin cabin. There's not much of a storyline in the music video, but it does depict a certain mood.

The reason why Bon Iver finally became quite a big name was that he jumped out of the music making that was aimed at success and just made music for himself. This is why his sound became so magical. I think it's a shame that he couldn't keep this up on his later albums. Already the second album, even though it does have a few good songs, sounded a lot bigger and more polished, thus losing some of the magic of this one. I think musicians should realise that music is only interesting when it comes straight from the heart and not when it's been calculated to fill a certain gap in the market. Then again, those markets do exist and sometimes good music from the heart doesn't find its way to big audiences. It's a real shame, since some phenomenal talent stays in the shadows in this way.

Listen to the album on Spotify.