Welcome to Folk Week on Artists Condensed. For no reason in particular, I've decided that this week I'll be showcasing a couple pleasant folk artists, one of them fairly well known and the other a tad obscure. While I don't really consider myself as well-versed in the granola crowd as I am in the likes of rock, electronic and charming people with pianos, I think that folk is pretty interesting on an academic level.

Of course, when I say "folk" I actually mean "United States Folk Pop" which isn't exactly deserving of the term "folk music". Compare it to, say, German Folk or even what one might call Chinese Folk and it becomes apparent that what we in America call our own folk music isn't really folk at all. Earthy people with guitars aren't really descriptive of American culture and when we present ourselves to other cultures or when other cultures interpret our own, the stuff we call folk isn't what comes to mind. In that sense, rock music is the closest thing to American folk music that really exists. After all, we've never really had a cohesive culture. Maybe that's why some of the best musicians in the American Folk style haven't been Americans. The two artists I'm covering this week certainly aren't.

Nick Drake belongs to that rare but not rare enough caste of gifted musicians who died suddenly and too soon. With only three albums and a few compilations to his name, the most striking part about Nick Drake's discography is just how incomplete it feels. It's obvious that the guy had a lot left in him when he died of what was probably an accidental overdose in 1974. As a folkie, he was actually pretty expansive and he would likely have evolved as a songwriter into something even more special than he already was.

• At The Chime of the City Clock

All three of Drake's albums are fairly self-contained. 1970's Bryter Layter was his second album, a decidedly jazzy composition that was hip and modern. It's the sound of a young artist getting into his groove, but still remaining honest.

• Cello Song
• Day is Done
• Fly

A lot of people in my generation came to Nick Drake through this song. Wes Anderson used it to great affect in The Royal Tenenbaums, a good go-to movie for classic but not-too-clever recordings. While this track appears on Bryter Layter it really fits better with the bare-soul arrangements on Pink Moon.

• Free Ride
• From the Morning
• Hazy Jane I
• Northern Sky

My personal favorite Nick Drake song. It contains everything that's good about him. It's gentle, pretty, well-arranged and punctuated by excellent lyrics.

• One of These Things First
• Parasite
• Pink Moon

A lot of fans and musical historians have tried to turn this track into the key to understanding Drake's sudden death. They've tried to find some kind of suicidal agony in it or a quietly lurking personal demon. Honestly, what I hear is more along the lines of a guy who loved playing music noodling around in his home studio. It's a two-minute toss-off track and it actually sounds like Drake's just having some fun.

• Place To Be
• Road
• Saturday Sun
• The Thoughts of Mary Jane

Nick Drake's debut album Five Leaves Left is both his most traditional and his most varied. It follows the standard folk tropes of lilting flute, gentle strum and general Easy Listening conventions. It's fine on its own, but if he had made two more albums just like it we wouldn't be listening to Nick Drake today.

• Three Hours
• Time Has Told Me
• Way To Be Blue

Folk musicians are the modern day answer to the Pastoral Poets. They're the contemplative centers of emotion who seek an artistic space more concerned with geological time scales than personal narratives. At once intimate and distant, their tone is more about their lofty ideas than any of their cultural trappings. Take away the guitars, the long hair and the sandals, they're still folkies.

Nick Drake wasn't the first inspired troubadour to shuffle loose too soon and he sadly wasn't the last. He has a spiritual brother in the late Elliott Smith and I'm sure another on the way in some yet-to-be-discovered friend of the six string. For what little consolation it's worth, the work Nick Drake left behind holds up remarkably well to time. When people have long stopped listening to the majority of folk musicians from the 60's and 70's, they'll still be listening to a select few who stood out from the pack. When people just don't have the energy for a raucous romp with Bob Dylan, they'll play some Nick Drake instead.