Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago [JAGJAGUWAR]

Why you'll love it

For Emma, Forever Ago went platinum on an indie label and landed on dozens of year-end lists. "Skinny Love" went gold and became one of the defining songs of the 2000s. Vernon made nearly all of it alone, layering his falsetto into a one-man choir.

This edition

• Jagjaguwar pressing
• Original nine-song album recorded in a Wisconsin cabin

About the album

As most Canadians know, "bon hiver" is a French expression that roughly (and not entirely accurately in the colloquial sense) translates as "good winter."

Justin Vernon's singer-songwriter alter ego Bon Iver was born while he was having a not particularly good winter (albeit one that, in hindsight, kinda turned into a good winter) at his father's hunting cabin deep in the woods of northwestern Wisconsin. Fresh out of his old band and a relationship, recovering from a serious illness and generally down in the dumps, Vernon fled to the remote location for three months from November of 2006 until January of 2007, hunting for sustenance and relying on his dad for weekly beer deliveries. Eventually he tired of drinking alone and watching TV all day and decided to channel his energies in more productive directions, multi-tracking layered acoustic guitars and falsetto chorales into the pained, lo-fi folk songs that would become For Emma, Forever Ago for up to 14 hours a day.

So, yes, Vernon probably went quite batty for a while. But he came out of it with a collection of battered, rustic tunes so striking that his friends begged him to put it out and, after Vernon put it out himself in July 2007 and a bit of a subsequent record-label feeding frenzy, Jagjaguwar got it out to the world at large in February of 2008 and Bon Iver became a legit band and not just some sad weirdo in a shack. Something about For Emma, Forever Ago still strikes a chord with the masses because we at Kops have to restock it all the time. Living well is the best revenge, as they say.

Also at Kops: more Bon Iver on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Jagjaguwar, first out in 2007.