Most genres of music can be adequately summarized bya handful of genre-defining albums that have helped shape their respective sounds.Albums likeMetallica’sMaster Of Puppets,without which metal wouldn’t be the powerhouse genre it is today, orThe Doors' self-titled albumthat inspired countless other classic rock albums throughout the 1970s.
With the genre’s vast history and different eras, it’s a bit difficult to definecontemporary folk musicwith just a handful of albums,especially given that the genre has been evolving since the start of the 20th century.One of the highest-rated albums of all time, however, is a folk album that has largely flown under the radar.
A chart of the top 50 albums of all time was posted onRedditand has been circulating on social media platforms since. The chart lists 50 albums in order of their cumulative scores from a handful of music critics, andEnglish musician Nick Drake’s 1972 folk album,Pink Moon,was listed at number 36.
Nick Drake’s Pink Moon Was his Only Album to Be Released in the US
Nick Drake grew up in the UK in the 1950s, and learned to play an impressive array of instruments, including piano, clarinet, and saxophone. He’d been making music for most of his life, but it wasn’t until 1968, while he was a student at Cambridge,that Drake was offered a record deal, and released his debut album one year later.
Neither his first album,Five Leaves Left, nor his second album,Bryter Layter, were very well-received. Though the former did reach the number 85 spot on the UK Albums Chart, the latter failed to chart at all, andneither one made its way across the pond to the US,a relatively necessary landmark of commercial success at the time.
In 1972, Drake releasedPink Moon,and this time around, his record label did a much better job of promotion and marketing than they did for his previous two albums. For one,Pink Moonwas the album to put him on the radar in the US,which afforded him some notoriety in the two biggest nations in the music industry.
Pink Moon’s Introspective Sound is Certainly a Defining Album In The History and Evolution of Folk Music
At just 28 minutes long,Pink Moonis a dark, introspective showing of Nick Drake’s talent as a lyricist.Beyond the lyrics, the acoustic guitar is, for the most part, the lone accompaniment, and perfectly sums up the sound of 1970s folk rock—if you look at the ’70s within the scope of folk music,Pink Moonreally isthealbum.
That said, the album’s success has really only come to fruition in the years after Drake’s death in 1974, which was ruled an apparent suicide. Even with the clear pivot from his label in promoting the album, and ensuring its release in the US,Drake didn’t even scratch the surface of fame reached by other folk artists of his time.
In hindsight,Pink Moonhas inspired any number of genre-bending musicians, truly solidifying the album’s legendary status. In a profile of Drake inThe Independent, R.E.M. guitarist, Peter Buck, said:
There was just something to me, as a teenager growing up in Georgia, incredibly sophisticated about him - the way the strings came in, that baroque sound, the guitar, the frail voice.
AsPink Moonwas Drake’s only album that would’ve been accessible to Buck in the US,it’s clear that the album’s impact on folk, rock, and folk rock is widespread, and still growing.
The Album is The True Definition of a Sleeper Hit
All that said, even with the album’s release and growing acclaim in both the US and the UK, some self-proclaimed music connoisseurs have never even heard ofPink Moon.The album has received five-star and 10/10 reviews from outlets like AllMusic, Pitchfork, and Rolling Stone,yet it still tends to bubble under the surface.
I first discoveredPink Moonas a teenager, when the title track came up on my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist. I loved the song, and added it to some of my own playlists, butit wasn’t until I saw the Top 50 Albums of All Time chart on Reddit that I decided to actually check out the other 11 tracks.
The songs are all pretty short, giving the album a total runtime of under half an hour long, so when it ends, you immediately find yourself wanting more.Nick Drake’sPink Moonis definitely one of the greater musical trips one can take,and anyone who has yet to listen to this album is doing themselves a serious disservice.
