Noah Kahan: The Great (Hateless?) Celebrity
By Caoimhe McCloskey
With stardom and notoriety comes the inevitable pressure to keep up with the trends and maintain mass appeal. Some celebrities maintain this global appeal very well, and others do not. Then there is the third kind, where they are known for being disliked. Once the public decides you are no longer worth the attention they give you, then that’s usually it.
Singer-songwriter and Grammy-nominated artist, Noah Kahan, is considered to be more than simply liked by his fans, but also incredibly respected. Gaining momentous fame with his hit Stick Season in 2022, Kahan has reached universal fame and success, garnering fans at an unprecedented level. Rolling Stone have deemed him to be “a different kind of superstar – a down-to-earth, delightful human who exudes everyman energy” [1]. This arguably plays a part in what makes his music so appealing. It is like a typecast for a star persona, but in this case, the star has much more control over it.
What differentiates the celebrity from the mere mortal man is the distance that is put between them and us. From how they live their lives to the extent that we see of them, and more heavily affect how we think of them. The common pattern is that celebrities tend to detach themselves from where they came from, preferring to untether themselves from their roots to latch onto the environment in which they have made for themselves.
The question to be asked is this: What makes Noah Kahan relatable despite his rise to fame? How has he avoided the dreaded label of cringe and being out of touch with his fans? Kahan states that “success fundamentally changed everything” for him and “forced him to reflect on his relationships” [2], leading to fans seeing that within his music. Perhaps being able to express his thoughts so vulnerably and, more importantly, publicising them in such a way by releasing these songs also helps to garner public admiration and relatability.
Discussing fame, hometown nostalgia, and outsideness from the industry are certainly not new concepts for singers, but few have seen the result that Kahan has. Taylor Swift most notably had a long run of being ‘the girl next door’, a persona that spanned many albums and musical genres until her latest album The Life of a Showgirl received mixed reviews, with fans calling out the singer’s misinterpretation of Shakespearean character Ophelia in the song, The Fate of Ophelia to ‘be the real tragedy’ and many finding the lyrics cringey, targeted for TikTok, and coming to the conclusion that Swift had outgrown the messages and star persona that she was trying to convey. In contrast, for example, her song Clara Bow from her previous album , The Tortured Poets Department , better presents the stretch of fame, pressures of stardom and construction of celebrity.
We can see that Kahan is not the first person to discuss such matters in his music. So, what makes him different?
With his latest album, The Great Divide, Kahan explores many themes, including the change that fame has brought. Songs like Dan and the titular track The Great Divide address the emotional distance that he feels that his musical success has brought. Perhaps that is what makes Noah Kahan stand against his musical peers: his music speaks of his personal conflict and criticisms of not only where he is now but also where he came from, creating a very complex and nuanced discography that I’m sure many relate to from completely different perspectives, hence why he has indeed seen such success.
As a casual listener and after listening to the album, I find it very much in tune with his previous work as well as with what this article has discussed. Personal favourites are Porch Light, A Few of Your Own and Willing and Able , but in all fairness, there is no song on the album that I can say that I dislike. They say that fame is fleeting, but in the case of Noah Kahan and his music, I can wager based on what we have seen from him, his impression on music and on his fans could very easily surpass that.
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