Noah Kahan

One Liner: Gentle indie pop-rock with a lovely voice and non-real Irish accent

Wikipedia Genre: Indie pop, folk pop, indie rock, indie folk

Home: New Hampshire

Poster Position: 2
Both Weekends.

Saturday.

Thoughts:  I am writing this post with hope in my heart, about two weeks before I expect the ACL lineup to be released.  This guy is one of the top non-headliner artists on the Lollapalooza lineup, and has the time and space to show up at ACL, so I'm jumping into this as a leap of faith and hoping that he comes through for me.

Dude is from New Hampshire, born in Vermont, and started uploading music to Soundcloud when he was a kid.  He learned guitar at age 12 after having started writing song around 9.  How rad is that?  Shockingly, he's not Irish.  I could have sworn it from the way his voice sounds.  He got noticed and decided to put off an admission to Tulane in order to explore his music options and sign a record deal.  For some reason, Wikipedia says that his major fans are called "busyheads."  Yes, that is the name of his debut album, but still, a weird term to call you biggest fans.

Three albums, 2019's Busyhead, 2021's I Was / I Am, and 2022's Stick Season.  In my opinion, that most recent album is absolutely the best of the three, has a much deeper melodic folkiness that is really appealing.  The earlier stuff is a little more poppy.  From that first album, "Hurt Somebody" is his top overall streamer with 293.4 million streams.

His voice kind of sounds like the guy from Monsters and Men.  For some reason, the album version of that song includes Julia Michaels and has a poppier mix for sure.  I like the original more, although the song has been certified Gold so he did something right!  "False Confidence" was also a big tune off of that album.  The hit off of the second disc was a duet with Joy Oladokun, an ACL alum herself, with 44.5 million streams.  But I'm going to give you the album opener instead, "Part of Me," with 31 million streams.

He's still slinging that guitar, but it has that same pop-forward sound of the first album, with that insistent drum machine putting in work under his picked guitar and soaring vocals.  Again, I prefer the new stuff.  He's toured with a bunch of folks who sound kind of like him - Milky Chance, The Strumbellas, George Ezra, James Bay, and his current tour mate - Dermot Kennedy, who we got at ACL last year.  He also apparently called himself the Jewish Ed Sheeran, which is funny.

He has also been open about struggles with mental health, which seems like a very 26-year-old thing to do these days.  He struggled with it much more before he started releasing music, and people's reactions helped him understand a better connection with other folks.

The new album is his first one to chart, reaching #14 on US charts and 29 in Canada.  The top song has reached #2 on the "Bubbling Under" chart from Billboard on #12 on the Rock Charts.  It is a great song - "Stick Season," with 128 million streams.

Again, hard to believe he is not an Irish dude from that accent.  Am I insane?  But, this one starts out as an excellent little folky tune that then erupts into a joyous anthem.  The album definitely has some poppy times, but I think it is aimed more at indie rock fans than those who dig drum machines.  I've enjoyed it for sure.

As a random aside, "stick season" is a thing in Vermont (and I suppose the northeast generally, but the article I just read is talking about Vermont) when the leaves have fallen off of the trees but the snow has not yet come to cover up the landscape.  it is a time of transition, when the days are shorter, the nights are colder, and people start to nest indoors.  I like that visual.  Here is a quote from Kahan: “The beauty of autumn foliage in Vermont transforms into a brown and gray wasteland as we wait for the first snow. It is an unfortunate but necessary transition, similar in so many ways to the transition from familiar lovers into heartbroken strangers. I like to look at the song as hopeful; winter will come, the snow will fall, melt, and eventually summer will be back in all its beauty. You will suffer, move on, and survive again.”

I'd go see this!