At the recent 2024 Grammys, an act of absurdity took place. The 2024 award for Best New Artist, an award that has been given to Mariah Carey, John Legend, The Beatles, and Adele, was given to Victoria Monét. 35 year-old Monét is a talented R&B artist with eight million monthly Spotify listeners. The rapper is well-deserving of the award, yet her accomplishments do not compare to one of the other nominees in the category.
With over 35 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and a 2024 Best New Artist Grammy nomination, Noah Kahan has had an impressive start to his music career into the music industry. It is a crime that he didn’t get the recognition that he deserves, as he is definitely this year’s best new artist.
Beginning Career
Kahan first picked up the acoustic guitar when he was ten years old. He started writing music infused with a folk style, drawing inspiration from artists like The Beatles, Cat Stevens, and Paul Simon. After he finally accepted a label deal with Republic in 2017, the first part of his career consisted of traveling around Los Angeles and New York. His debut album Busyhead, is a slower-tempoed pop album. It features the song “Hurt Somebody” with Julia Micheals, which is the song that planted the seed for Kahan’s music career.
“Hurt Somebody” topped charts all over the world and was Kahan’s tiny but significant break in 2017. The song’s rhythm is upbeat, yet the tempo and lyrics contradict each other. Kahan and Micheals sing about not being able to cut off a relationship and illustrate the guilt that comes with painful endings between people.
While “Hurt Somebody” and Busyhead were both crucial to the start of Kahan’s career, Kahan didn’t feel like his true folk style was present in the album. He told Boston Magazine: “I was writing music that I wouldn’t listen to. My escape was writing little folk songs for myself.”
In 2020, Kahan produced his EP album Cape Elizabeth, which exhibited his true folk style. The album was written during Covid; a period where Kahan escaped from the city and returned back to his hometown in Vermont. While his folk style in Cape Elizabeth was more present than in Busyhead, the album was a continuation of Kahan’s meaningful and consistent song topics: his home and mental health.
Songs With True Meaning
Kahan grew up in Strafford, Vermont, and Hanover, New Hampshire. Strafford is a small, woodsy town with a population of only 1,000, and Hanover, home to Dartmouth College, is similarly rural.
His deep connection to his New England roots is present in his lyrics and songs. Not only are the physical components of New England brought alive in his music, but also the emotional take it has on the people who live there.
His most popular song “Stick Season” is about the dry and ghostly feeling of the period between leafy fall and snowy winter; a period that many New Englanders can relate to. He explains that this period is “… a time of transition in the weather, but also in a lot of people’s lives.”
“Homesick”, another one of Kahan’s most popular songs, is about the contradictory feeling of never wanting to leave your home but feeling isolated in it at the same time. The term homesick is used to describe the feeling of missing home while being completely sick of it. He sings about the attributes of New Englanders and the bitterness that is associated with the people who live there.
Lastly, “The View Between Villages” references his home town in Vermont and the feeling of reminiscence he gets when he comes back home. He sings about the rush of memories, heartbreaks, and emotions that come flooding back; almost like everything was waiting for him to return. This song holds a significant amount of depth and meaning, and Kahan poetically describes the feelings that come in between leaving where you are now and returning home. The name of this feeling is perfectly summed up in the title.
Growing up, Kahan severely struggled with insecurity and mental health. Every single one of his songs allude to or directly sing about difficult feelings, emotions, or mental health. While his songs can bear heavy and thoughtful meanings, they are extremely relatable. Kahan is an active advocate for therapy and being true to how you feel, so his songs consist of vulnerable yet powerful lyrics.
His song “False Confidence” is a great example of this and is a super personal song. Kahan sings about self-doubt and putting on a false persona around others. He critiques the way he acts differently around people and how that only creates “holes” in the way he thinks about himself.
His song “Your Needs, My Needs” is about losing a person who is very close to you and dealing with the feelings of a relationship that has closed. Kahan sings about how losing someone can damage your self-worth and dignity, and how he copes with drugs and alcohol.
“Growing Sideways” is another great example and one of Kahan’s most sincere songs. In the song, Kahan sings about going to therapy with the weight of depression and insecurity on his back, but trying to cover it up at the same time. He sings about his coping strategies involving alcohol and anger, and the fear he possesses about his own depression holding him back from growing with the rest of the world.
Take Off Career
Kahan’s 2023 album Stick Season, which has rocketed into top charts all over the world, is made up of songs that are honest and personal. In the last few months, Kahan has redone many of his songs on this album to include features with artists like Post Malone, Hozier, Sam Fender, Gracie Abrams, and Kacey Musgraves.
Kahan and these other artists bring the bitter, folkie, leafy, crunchy, homey, and quiet feelings of New England alive, yet shine light on expressing your feelings.
The 25-year old artist has capabilities beyond his years, and his music is passionate and thoughtful. Kahan’s honesty and openness about his emotions are what makes him such a powerful artist. In a music world full of songs boasting about money or achievements, Kahan’s songs are raw and beautiful. While he didn’t win the Grammy for Best Artist of the Year, there are surely many awards and Grammys in his promising future.
