Bibliographic Information

Title: Stick Season (Forever)

Artist: Noah Kahan

Release Date: February 9, 2024

Record Label: Mercury Records/Republic

Genre

Folk

Format

Music

Running Time

2 hours

Interest Level

Fans of Stick Season (Forever) range from teen to middle-aged and it’s not uncommon for teens and parents to attend Kahan’s concerts together and enjoy the music in equal measure (Alter, 2023).

Awards or Honors

For artist Noah Kahan:

• Nominated, Grammy Award for Best New Artist (2024)
• Won, iHeart Radio Award for Best New Artist (2024)

For Stick Season album:

• Nominated, Billboard Music Award Top Rock Album (2023)
• The original Stick Season album has reached Double Platinum status in the United States, and the single “Stick Season” has more than a billion streams on Spotify.

Special Note about This Album

Stick Season (Forever) is the third iteration of this album. The original Stick Season was released with 14 tracks in 2022, an extended Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever) was released in 2023 with seven more tracks, and Stick Season (Forever) was released in 2024 with a total of 30 tracks, including three more original songs and a second version of several of the existing songs done as collaborations with other artists.

Album Description

Stick Season (Forever) centers around recurring themes of small towns, transition and change, mental health, and relationships. The folksy, Americana sound is felt through the consistent use of banjo, acoustic guitar, mandolin, whistling, and harmonies. Lyrics are generally introspective and raw. This (Forever) iteration of the album features several collaborations with other artists including Hozier, Gracie Abrams, and Brandi Carlile. Though Stick Season is popular with mainstream audiences, it’s also regularly referred to as “a love letter to New England” (DeSantis, 2022).

Artist Background

Noah Kahan grew up between Strafford, Vermont and Hanover, New Hampshire and was raised on a 133-acre tree farm. After high school, he decided to focus on music full-time and was signed to Republic Records at just 20 years old. He had a breakout hit with the single “Hurt Somebody” in 2019, but did not reach widespread success at that time. In 2020, he began posting snippets of his music on TikTok and grew a large audience online; songs for his album Stick Season were already viral by the time it released in 2022 (Noah Kahan, 2024).

“Kahan has been vocal about his mental health journey and challenges since a young age” and in 2023, he founded The Busyhead Project, “a mental health initiative … aimed at providing resources and information needed to end the stigma around mental health” (https://www.busyheadproject.org/).

Critical Evaluation

Stick Season (Forever) is the kind of music you listen to when you want to process big emotions, kind of like watching a movie you know will make you cry. There is something deeply cathartic about Noah Kahan’s lyrics and atmospheric in its folksy, Americana delivery. I love all the collaborations on this iteration of the album, with my favorite being “You’re Gonna Go Far” with Brandi Carlile.

I’ve discovered I need to be in a particular mood to listen to Stick Season (Forever), and even then sometimes in smaller doses; the melancholy can teeter on despair if I’m not in the right head-space. But there is healing in this album, and the honest, vulnerable lyrics really do feel like a hug, or like someone telling you, “I know, I know,” which is a beautiful thing.

Creative Use for a Library Program

Stick Season (Forever) has several lyrics about weather (ie: sun, snow, rain). A library could run a program for youth teaching them all about the science of weather and perhaps brings in a local news meteorologist to talk about studying and forecasting the weather.

Speed Round Talk

Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (Forever) reaches into the broken, vulnerable places of the heart to say all the things we shouldn’t be afraid to say about sadness, loneliness, and regret, helping even the most doubt-filled listener feel seen.

Potential Challenge Issues and Defense Preparation

Adult stakeholders might want to know that there are both “explicit” and “clean” versions of songs available from Stick Season (Forever) and that many lyrics discuss drug and alcohol use and mental health challenges, including suicide. None of these serious issues are glorified, but are dealt with in a real, honest way, and could be useful entry points into important conversations with teens.

Reasons for Inclusion

Teens need to hear open, honest conversation about mental health challenges in a way that is not dark or shameful, and Noah Kahan is doing just that with Stick Season (Forever), his sold-out concerts, and The Busyhead Project. Coverage of his concerts consistently detail the emotional, transformative experiences of attendees (Alter, 2023). Noah Kahan and his music are a phenomenon right now and absolutely belong in this contemporary collection for teens.

Use the player below to listen to songs from Stick Season (Forever) on Spotify: