How Bon Iver's 'For Emma' changed the world
In the winter of 2006, Justin Vernon entered his father’s Wisconsin cabin a lost and broken man. ❚ Three months later, he emerged with renewed purpose, and with something that would change his life — and the world. ❚ He left with music — gorgeous, intimate, fragile folk songs, guided by a shimmering falsetto. They would make up “For Emma, Forever Ago,” the debut album for his new project, Bon Iver. Vernon was showered with critical accolades and awards, Kanye West called to collaborate, and an unlikely star was born. ❚ But “For Emma” accomplished even more than that. It deeply influenced other artists — Ed Sheeran and the Lumineers among them — helping shape the music that we hear today.
❚ It created careers and opportunities for Wisconsin creatives in Vernon’s orbit, and helped usher in an ongoing cultural renaissance in his hometown of Eau Claire, which has the second highest population growth in Wisconsin.
On Feb. 16, “For Emma” will be reissued on vinyl and CD in honor of its 10th anniversary. The next night, Bon Iver, and fans from Canada and more than 40 states, will gather at a sold-out BMO Harris Bradley Center in Milwaukee, for a special commemorative concert dubbed “Bon Iver: For Emma, 10 Years.”
“A few weeks ago I was using Apple Music and was scrawling through its ‘Essential Singer-Songwriter Albums’ page,” said Vernon’s manager Kyle Frenette. “And there was ‘For Emma,” along with (Bob Dylan’s) ‘Blood on the Tracks’ and (Carole King’s) ‘Tapestry.’ It’s only 10 years old, but it’s a classic album.”
The origin of Bon Iver is a classic music story as well, playing a critical part in the success of “For Emma.”
After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 2004, Vernon focused on local alt-country act DeYarmond Edison, moving with the band to Raleigh, N.C., the following year.
In 2006, his relationship with his bandmates disintegrated, he broke up with his girlfriend, and late that fall, retreated alone to his father Gil’s cabin on 80 acres in Dunn County, Wis., where he hunted deer, chopped wood and put up walls in a barn.
He also started writing and recording songs about longing and lost love and self-disappointment. And he experimented with his falsetto, manipulating and layering recordings of his voice, creating an ethereal choir-like effect and establishing a distinct signature trait.
In a Journal Sentinel interview last fall, Vernon likened the experience to “shedding skin.”
“I was definitely down and pretty confused,” he said. “At 26, I was thinking about going back to school to be a music teacher. To me, that felt like giving up, even though I was excited about that prospect. There was a lot of despair. I had anxiety and depression for longer than I kind of knew about and I didn’t really understand it back then.”
He said getting through that hard time though made him stronger. It also made him a stronger artist.
“His voice had this soulful, feminine yet masculine quality to it, and it was beautiful and it was heartfelt,” said Frenette, who followed Vernon’s music career in Eau Claire, and was one of the first to hear “For Emma” after it was posted to MySpace in spring 2007. “It was so unique sounding and raw and emotional. I was just taken aback and wanted to tell the whole world about it.”
Frenette became Vernon’s manager that April and helped press 500 copies of the album on CD. He sent seventeen copies to labels and music sites.
My Old Kentucky Blog wrote about it first in June 2007, a month before the official release shows in Eau Claire. Then Pitchfork posted a glowing review in October.
“That was the catapult,” Frenette said. “I remember trying to take a shower and people were calling and calling.”
Bon Iver played the CMJ Festival in New York that month, meeting with representatives from more than a dozen labels. Vernon signed with Jagjaguwar, an independent label out of Bloomington, Ind., which re-released “Emma” in 2008.
“It is the most important record we’ve ever released,” said label founder Darius Van Arman. “The initial plan was to set an initial budget where we would break even if we sold 5,000 records worldwide. We sold that much in the first week and have been trying to keep up ever since.”
“Emma” was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in September.
“The time was right for something that would do well by word of mouth to be amplified,” Van Arman said. “People were discovering music not based on what they saw on record shelves in stores, or by what was subtly pushed to them with algorithms on streaming services, but by what blogs and slightly bigger sites like Pitchfork thought about music . ... People at that time were really yearning for the idea that artists can be successful if they have an authentic voice.”
“Emma” was among the highest-praised albums of 2008. As time passed, both Pitchfork and Rolling Stone proclaimed it as one of the best albums of the decade, the latter declaring it one of the 100 best debut albums of all time.
Bon Iver, with three full-length albums to its name, remains an in-demand touring act, occupying prime slots at festivals, and headlining arenas and large theaters.
It wouldn’t have been possible without “Emma.” West was such a fan, he collaborated with Vernon on his 2010 blockbuster comeback album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” That broadened Bon Iver’s fan base ahead of sophomore album “Bon Iver, Bon Iver” in 2011, which won two Grammys, including
Best New Artist.
By 2012, Bon Iver became such a pop culture phenomenon that Justin Timberlake impersonated Vernon on “Saturday Night Live.” Six years later, when Timberlake announced his new album “Man of the Woods” with an earthy teaser trailer, people on social media quickly drew comparisons to “Emma.”
But ultimately it’s the music, more than that first album’s backstory, that’s had the larger cultural impact.
When Vernon made “Emma,” vocal manipulation wasn’t new — Cher’s Auto-Tune-heavy “Do You Believe” came out 10 years prior — but the way he used it to heighten his vulnerability was novel, and ultimately seminal. Similarly, West would use vocal manipulation for his own intimate and influential album, “808s and Heartbreak,” following the death of his mother and the end of his relationship with his fiancee.
“Justin helped reimagine the ways voices can be propagated on record,” Van Arman argued. “A voice doesn’t always have to sound like itself. Singers can push it, use it as an instrument, experiment with it. I feel that is where he made his strongest mark culturally.”
“Emma” also readied the market for a seismic folk revival led by acts like the Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers.
Folk-pop artist Sheeran — the moststreamed artist in the world on Spotify — was heavily influenced by “Emma,” similarly centering his first album around a lost love, and tattooing the lyrics to “Emma” song “re:stacks” on his arm.
English electronic artist James Blake told the Journal Sentinel in a 2013 interview that he listened to “Emma” obsessively in college; his own fragile, sparse sound influenced pop titans like Frank Ocean and Drake, and led to a guest appearance on Beyonce’s “Lemonade.”
Even as Bon Iver’s influence has spread across the world, Vernon stayed home in Eau Claire. He employs local artists and friends in his band and at his studio April Base and as part of his touring crew. He toured the world with Wisconsin musicians he idolizes in side project Volcano Choir, and booked Milwaukee bands he admires, Field Report and Collections of Colonies of Bees, to open the “Emma” show.
“I’m pretty sure the only reason I got my first record deal was because someone was searching for songwriters in Wisconsin trying to find the next one,” said Field Report frontman Christopher Porterfield.
Similarly, Sean Carey, Bon Iver’s drummer, said he wouldn’t have a career without Vernon’s success; he releases his own albums on Jagjaguwar behind the stage name S. Carey.
Vernon’s also been a proponent for arts investment in Eau Claire, serving as a vocal supporter for the Confluence Arts Center, a fiercely debated $45 million public arts center, partially funded by public money, that will open later this year.
Vernon is also a co-owner of the Oxbow boutique hotel downtown, which hosts live jazz three nights a week, largely local performers, with Carey doing the booking.
Then there’s Vernon’s four-year-old boutique festival Eaux Claires.
Approximately 25,000 people have attended Eaux Claires each year, with 85% of attendees coming from farther than 60 miles away, according to Visit Eau Claire. Festgoers come from 49 states and seven countries and annually spend $6.8 million in the community during the festival.
“There are a lot of people making things happen in Eau Claire and pushing the rock up the hill,” said Nick Meyer, an investor with Vernon in the Oxbow, and the publisher, editor and owner of Eau Claire cultural magazine Volume One. “But seeing a musician from here have such enormous success invest so much back helped solidify the importance of arts and music in the community.”