After my recent commentary on filk music, I got an e-mail that basically said, "What the heck is 'filk'? Are you misspelling folk?" As I said, filk is the folk music of the science fiction/fantasy community. I was first introduced to it in college, entirely through recordings. People whose main exposure to filk is through sing-alongs at conventions often think of filk as bad singers singing loudly. But I never had that experience, and haven't actually ever attended a real filking session. Thus my experiences with filk could be considered atypical of most filk fans.
Ahem, I'm getting off the track. Yes, 'filk' is a misspelling of 'folk'. A typo, actually, that was embraced by the community to differentiate their music from typical folk music. Filk music ranges from really silly to incredibly touching and powerful. Just like any other genre of music, actually. A really good overview of filk music is at filk.com in their Filk 101 section and also in Kay Shapero's Filk FAQ.
Being limited to recordings means that I've missed a lot of filk, but what I hear is generally pretty good. Unfortunately, most of my collection is on cassette, and I don't have a really good way to turn them into CDs, though I've started to work on it. And whenever a CD is released of an album I already have and love, I put it on my must get list for buying when I actually have spending money again.
So, if you are curious, here's how to listen to some filk for free. The first place to visit is The Virtual Filksing which has a collection of links to various filksongs you can either download or listen to streaming. The ones that jump out at me as good to download are "Fellowship Going South" and "Hope Eyrie". If you want some space shuttle music, there are three songs from the classic album Minus Ten And Counting at this site. There are samples of Meg Davis' work at her site. There are also a number of Filkers on mp3.com, and many of them have songs that are downloadable.
- Three Weird Sisters - I love the haunting "Song of Fey Cross"
- Kathy Mar at mp3.com - I like "Acts of Creation" most.
- Prometheus Music at mp3.com - "Surprise!" is a lighthearted look at why we went to space.
- Julia Ecklar at mp3.com - "Hand of God" is a fantastic song about blindly trusting religious leaders.
- Bob Kanefsky at mp3.com - pure parody.
- Cynthia McQuillin
- Urban Tapestry - definitely listen to "The Lady" and "Sex and Chocolate". But don't let the kids listen to the second one, it's a bit naughty.
- Sable
- Tom Smith - very funny guy, the "Trans Poly U" song is about the Girl Genius comic.
- Carla Ulbrich - more folk than filk, but "Please Do Something Stupid" is a great song.
- Annwn - I'm still not sure what to make of "Penguin Lust".
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