Which are the ESSENTIAL INDIE FOLK BANDS you need know about? Which are the best current Indie Folk bands that are the minimum you need to have their records before building on your Indie-Folk Music record collection? Mmmm tough one to answer, there are so many excellent & amazing Great Indie-Folk Bands.
Here is my personal list of the current BEST INDIE FOLK Bands currently to get into. Understand this is a very subjective issue & everyone has their valid opinions. These 40 Indie Folk Bands are suggesting building blocks to your Record collection (especially for beginners) which will be built on by other older & newer artists-records as they get discovered or appear to your likes. Said in a different manner, this is MY choice of the essential INDIE-FOLK Bands records that you NEED TO OWN, listened to & have within any serious Indie Folk Music Record collection… They are just 40 names restricted in number for discipline sake and in NO particular order of ranking.

Realize perfectly well that there are many other great Indie Folk Music bands missing, but had to chose only 40 for this list...Based criteria on factors like Innovation, Impact, Debut acclaim, Influence on others, Sales, Different Genres & Durability. The debate is naturally opened & naturally welcomed :O)

*BAND = more than 1 person, single artist names left out of list.
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Indie folk is a music genre that arose in the 1990s among musicians from indie rock scenes influenced by folk music. Indie folk hybridize the acoustic guitar melodies of traditional folk music with contemporary instrumentation. The genre has its earliest origins in 1990s folk artists who displayed alternative rock influences in their music (source Wiki)
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FULL VIDEO LIST OF THE 40 ESSENTIAL INDIE FOLK MUSIC BANDS (in NO particular order of priority):

Fleet Foxes
The Civil Wars
Alt-J
Band of Horses
Mumford & Sons
Neutral Milk Hotel
My Morning Jacket
Grizzly Bear
The Mountain Goats
Noah and the Whale
Wilco
The Lumineers
Beirut
The Avett Brothers
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
Bright Eyes
Monsters of Folk
Other Lives
Passenger
The Head and the Heart
Matthew & the Atlas
The Shins
Okkervil River
Blind Pilot
First Aid Kit
The Decemberists
Of Monsters and Men
The Milk Carton Kids
Midlake
Vancouver Sleep Clinic
Wye Oak
The Blindspots
Half Moon Run
Stornoway
Dry the River
The Jayhawks
Margot and the Nuclear So-So's
Blitzen Trapper
Boy & Bear
Fossil Collective

Audio: courtesy of MY MORNING JACKET - “One Big Holiday”

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