Indie Folk
Indie folk is music by independent artists that mixes the acoustic sound of folk with the attitude and experiments of indie rock.
Expect acoustic guitar, often with banjo, mandolin or ukulele, and soft, thoughtful singing. Lyrics are personal and inward-looking. It emerged in the 1990s among indie rock musicians drawn to folk, and later reached the pop charts through bands such as Fleet Foxes. It is quieter and less traditional than folk, and more acoustic than indie rock.
Artists it is known for: Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Bright Eyes, Sufjan Stevens.
- Family
- Folk & Acoustic
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States, 1990s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 10%
About 8,400 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have indie folk among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Indie Folk artists
Adrianne Lenker
Gigi Perez
Cameron Winter
The Lumineers
Bon Iver
Gregory Alan Isakov
Novo Amor
Mumford & Sons
Esha Tewari
Paris Paloma
The indie folk artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.