Bardcore, medieval folk, medieval metal. Toss a coin to the troubadours of today, performing musical necromancy and conjuring a cultural renaissance.
In the digital age we live in, dominated by screens of all sizes, there has been an increasing wave of nostalgia and longing for the good old days, free from the grips of technological prisons and modern-day dystopia. That yearning is perhaps most evident in music. While many have been revisiting the era of Y2K and the mid-2010s, others have turned the clock back much further with Bardcore and Taverncore.
Bardcore isn’t exactly music from the medieval era. It’s the reimagining of modern songs with a Renaissance twist, achieved by employing instruments from the Middle Ages (real and virtual), such as the lute, with the lyrics changed to sound a lot like what one today would imagine a minstrel might sing. There is a lot of “thee”, “thou”, and words ending with “-est” combined with fanciful imitations of early modern English. Not really accurate, but all in good fun.
The birth of Bardcore happened during the heyday of the plague. Not the black plague, of course, but our equivalent of it: the COVID-19 outbreak, circa 2020. Perhaps inspired by our own Dark Ages, the minstrels of today took to streaming platforms like YouTube, uploading covers of every song under the sun, from The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” to Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks”, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”. There’s nary a tune that the modern bards cannot strum in a manner that turns back time.
Though the plague era has been attributed as the start of Bardcore as we know it, similar takes of songs from our century had already existed.
Belarusian medieval folk band Stary Olsa released Medieval Classic Rock in 2016, an album comprising rock covers of both vocal and instrumental tracks, including one very ambitious mashup of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with “Ai Vis Lo Lop”, a French folk song from the High Medieval Period. While the lyrics remain unchanged, unlike modern Bardcore, the spirit is very much the same.
Sting, meanwhile, took a different direction with his 2006 album Songs from the Labyrinth. Done in collaboration with Bosnian lutenist Edin Karamazov, the album featured 23 songs by English composer John Dowland (1563-1626). Dowland’s compositions, though often laced with a melancholic tone, were wildly popular, cementing his position as one of the most influential lutenists of his time. His personal life was as dramatic as his music: he even dabbled in espionage for English statesman and spymaster, Sir Robert Cecil, during his time in Denmark and France. Whilst in Italy, a needle of suspicion on account of Catholic treason was pointed at Dowland. In a bid to save face, he wrote to Sir Robert Cecil, vehemently denying the accusations. It is these letters that Sting reads aloud, interspersed with the songs played on the lute and the archlute. Essentially, Sting brought Renaissance music to a contemporary pop audience.
There is, in fact, an entire range of sub-genres inspired by variations of early music, from medieval folk to medieval metal, that’s been around since the mid-1960s (at the time, called baroque-pop). These musical offshoots employed styles from early music such as musical modes and layered harmonies, coupled with the use of traditional instruments alongside those of the modern base genre. Medieval folk-rock groups like Blackmore’s Night (fronted by Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore and singer Candice Night), the German group Ougenweide and German medieval metal band Tanzwut are all examples of modern musicians taking cues and inspiration from medieval texts and instruments to create an amalgamation of the old and the new.
Unlike the days of yore, when one had to go to the local town square or the nearest tavern to listen to the minstrels pluck at lyre strings, we now have tiny pocket devices that allow us to hear them at our earliest convenience. There are thousands of bardcore musicians covering popular songs with comment sections mimicking what patrons of old used to say.
Meanwhile, in the world of video games, where the fantasy genre flourishes, attention to detail and the need for immersion is a must. Besides the ambient noise and rich atmosphere, the background score is what allows the player to really step into the game’s world. Games like The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, Skyrim, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Dragon Age all feature medieval-inspired fantasy music. They all also have several bard characters, who are either getting into trouble, minding their own business, or looking for the next story to spin into song. Traverse the land in any of these games, and you’ll find yourself thinking you’ve been transported to another age.
With popular fantasy-based tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons gaining ground, Game Masters are spoilt for choice while creating an ambience for their players. The plethora of pseudo-medieval songs adds the much-needed touch of humor during a brief respite after an exhausting dungeon crawl. Earlier, hunting for a good background score for a DnD session meant repurposing the same audio tracks from fantasy films and video games. But with the advent of Bardcore, no two sessions have a repeat playlist.
One can also listen to this music in real life; Renaissance fairs or ‘ren-fairs’ (most common in the U.S.) as they are popularly called, saw a resurgence after 2020, prompting the bards of today to actually perform on stage in full medieval regalia, replete with lyres, lutes and psaltery while fairgoers watch enraptured making merry. Originally, ren-fairs began as a safe performance space for those in the creative fields who had been blacklisted by Hollywood during the Red Scare. The first ren-fair happened all the way back in 1963. In present times, it is more of an attempt to escape from the real world and finally embrace the dream jobs of the Dark Ages, jesters and knights abound!
Live Action Role Play (LARP) events take things a step further from ren-fairs. Taking place mainly in Europe and the U.S., LARP lasts for multiple days at a time and, depending on the setting, can take place even in wooded areas or ancient castles, where one takes on the role of a fictional character of their choice. Throughout the course of the event, you are not allowed to break character. LARP isn’t strictly confined to a medieval setting either (Vampire: The Masquerade has LARP groups all over with timelines shifting from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance and the turn of the century). Among all the knights, druids, and peasants, bards also make up a lot of the player base, often resulting in impromptu concerts during a wind-down session. Today, ren-fairs and LARP are niche events that have now become more mainstream thanks to social media.
Perhaps it is the combination of easy accessibility and the desire for a break from the fast-paced lives we lead today that has prompted a resurgence of medieval tunes. In a world where everything feels artificial, cold, and generated by machines lacking that much-needed soul, we all yearn for the warmth of a tavern to enjoy a glass of mead, and the slow, comforting playing of a troubadour on tangible instruments in the background.