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Earlier in 2026, when The Great Divide had been out for a couple of months and Noah Kahan had kicked off his accompanying tour, the Vermont native took to socials to quip, “It’s going to be the best sweatiest and most depressing summer ever”.
It's a rhetoric Kahan has pushed throughout his career, with the ‘Stick Season’ singer-songwriter always joking during his shows about how his music will leave you feeling miserable.
But on his latest album, The Great Divide: The Last Of The Bugs, while the project is full of heartbreaking meditations on mental health, loneliness and more, there's a refreshing and undeniable undercurrent of hope that balances out this vulnerability.
It's something The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping director, Francis Lawrence, earmarked as a key reason as to why he chose him for the lead single from the new film soundtrack, with Kahan penning the bittersweet ‘Draw You Out’ especially for it.
And this powerful concoction of devastating despair and quiet hope that Kahan has honed leads us to another realisation: is Noah Kahan the most versatile star in modern music?
Kahan is able to flit between moods that are on opposing ends of the spectrum, while feeling and capturing each side with a depth and verve that few other artists can.
But he can also flit between genres and appeal to pockets of listeners that - arguably - no other artist can. The core of Kahan's fanbase is folk, with his primary influences cited as the likes of Hozier, Mumford & Sons, Gregory Alan Isakov and Bon Iver.
Yet Kahan has somehow managed to secure a loyal following among country listeners, despite never claiming to be a country artist - and even outright ridiculing the notion last year. Country fans are famously reluctant to welcome in outsiders, especially those who don't appear to have any major affinity for the genre.
With Kahan, though, there's an unquestionable appeal, partly born from his high-profile run of collaborations with the likes of Kelsea Ballerini, Kacey Musgraves and Post Malone, but also from the way in which his music is so inextricably linked to place.
Country has always been intertwined with the setting within which its music lives, with romanticised, bucolic imagery permeating the genre. Kahan's catalogue, although folk-driven, is famously rooted in vivid, visceral portrayals of rural Vermont.
And then, through his open-mindedness - especially on The Great Divide - and perhaps also through his vocal support of artists like Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo, Kahan has a strong pop following too. He is able to navigate these sonic territories in a way that never alienates one or the other. And it's evident both from his digital footprint and from the scale of his 2027 The Last Of The Bugs Tour, with Kahan headlining stadiums not only in North America but across the UK and Europe - regions that are notoriously hard to crack for country acts - that he has a deep fanbase across demographics. These are not just casual listeners.
This showcases a dual versatility. On the one hand, Kahan can incorporate and blend an eclectic array of sounds and styles convincingly and seamlessly, and on the other, he can appeal commercially to the corresponding genres on a major scale.
And then you consider the live shows. Kahan will perform the most gut-wrenching song you've ever heard, singing about driving desperately through the night to stop his friend from acting on their suicidal thoughts on ‘Call Your Mom’. Then, a matter of seconds after the final note rings out, Kahan will be back to his jovial, light-hearted self, cracking deadpan, hilarious jokes about having hemorrhoids. His endearing personality came to the fore on his compelling Netflix documentary, Out of Body, where he opened up about his struggles with body image and depression, while still conveying welcome moments of levity.
It's a juxtaposition that shouldn't work, especially in this era where ‘authenticity’ and ‘sincerity’ seem to be the two buzzwords for any up-and-coming artist as they try to promote their music on social media. But for Kahan, it's a tightrope walk that works, and that also feels like an effortless, natural extension of who he is.
It feels apt, looking back at that 2022 run when Kahan was gearing up for his string of Stick Season duets, that the ‘Orange Juice’ crooner was being labelled ‘Folk Malone’ by fans - a social media wave that resulted in a collaboration with Post Malone himself.
Because the only artist that can really come close to Kahan when you're talking in terms of versatility is Post - an artist that made that cavernous leap from Hip-Hop to country, and simultaneously flirts with rock and metal. His public persona and his musical persona, much like Kahan, often feel incongruous, with Post rapping about hedonistic parties and wild behaviour, while being widely known as the most polite, kind-hearted and softly-spoken celebrity in our modern echelon.
But even when pitted head to head with Post, it feels like Kahan has more strings to his bow. In order to make that successful transition from Hip-Hop to country, it took months of careful strategising, well-placed performances and A-list co-signs. Even now, as Post readies his new album, there are concerns rippling throughout the country world that he is returning to rap, a move that threatens the good favour he curried in 2024 and makes that transition feel a little less genuine.
Similarly, when Kahan took the stage for that beautiful performance of Simon & Garfunkel's ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ at the 2026 Emmys, it was a stunning rendition that was perfectly suited to the In Memoriam segment. Post has the vocal range to deliver a great performance, but it wouldn't necessarily feel on-brand or the right fit.
So it's hard to think of anyone in today's musical landscape that is able to weave between genres, between audiences, between moods and between tones as successfully as Kahan can. As he prepares to launch his 2026 UK and Europe tour, with a colossal 2027 stadium run and a suspected 2027 GRAMMY Album of the Year nomination seemingly on the horizon, this doesn't feel the folk titan reaching the peak of his powers - this is just the start. For Kahan, the sky is truly the limit.
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