Talk It Out: How We Feel About Noah Kahan’s ‘The Great Divide’

When Noah Kahan drops a new record, it’s all hands on deck in the Seven Days music section. So with The Great Divide hitting last week, music editor Chris Farnsworth enlisted former music editor and current culture coeditor Dan Bolles to help tackle one of the most anticipated Vermont releases in years. The only problem? Neither qualifies as a Busyhead.

They’re well versed in the Strafford native’s work — Farnsworth wrote a 2024 cover story on Kahan, which Bolles edited. But they don’t share the connection — nor expectations, for that matter — of Kahan’s fervent fans, who have been waiting for the follow-up to his smash hit, Stick Season, for nearly four years.

Fortunately, proofreader Angela Simpson is one of the faithful and was eager to help dig into the new album. Here’s how the three inched themselves across The Great Divide.

CHRIS FARNSWORTH: I feel like the only person in Vermont still surprised by how huge Noah Kahan has become. Which is ridiculous, really. I saw him sell out Fenway Park. I watched his video premiere during the Super Bowl. I remember the crazy scene at Waterfront Park when he last played in Burlington.

I think I struggle to reconcile his stardom because of the first time we spoke. He was a largely unknown singer-songwriter emailing me to talk about his new album, Stick Season, which was something of a creative gambit as he pushed his sound toward the folk and Americana of his youth.

He’s become to Vermont what Bruce Springsteen represents to people from New Jersey.
Chris Farnsworth

Now? He’s become to Vermont what Bruce Springsteen represents to people from New Jersey: He’s a totem; a scruffy, flannel-wearing avatar who self-deprecates and has a therapist. A rock star who seems so approachable, he could be the dude on the ski lift with the good weed and some killer jokes.

Hell, Spotify was so taken with Kahan’s whole Woods Bro vibe that it started telling people to move to Vermont in its Wrapped series a few years ago. (Clearly Spotify never peeped the cost of living in Chittenden County!)

So before we hit play on The Great Divide, I’m curious what it’s been like for you guys experiencing Kahan’s meteoric rise.

ANGELA SIMPSON: First, let me clarify that I don’t consider myself a Busyhead. I really enjoy Kahan’s music, and I often choose it when I’m looking for something to listen to in the car, but I can’t compare to his über hard-core fans. I’m more of a Moderately Occupied-Head, if you will. A Little-Bit-Hectic-Head.

As for his rapid rise, I remember the first time I heard “Stick Season” on the Point and thought, Whoever he is, he understands something about living here. Just a few months later, out-of-state friends told me they were going to a Noah Kahan show that weekend, and I said, “Wait, our Noah Kahan?”

His explosion has been a terrific thing to watch, because, really, could it happen to a nicer person? I’m happy for and proud of him, and I say that as the wife of a professional musician who has been playing songs in relative obscurity in Vermont for decades. I just hope he’s enjoying it. Go ahead and say yes to every product tie-in you want, Noah. Sell those candles. Grab it all while it’s in front of you.

DAN BOLLES: Living in Vermont, it’s impossible not to be at least peripherally aware of his rise, though my familiarity with his music is mostly academic. So I consider myself a Kahan agnostic: I’m sure he exists, but I don’t have any particular leanings toward him either way.

Back when I was sitting in your chair, Chris, and was paid to have opinions on such matters, I suspect I would have spared no chance to poke fun at him in Soundbites, per the decades-long tradition of Seven Days music editors skewering whoever was the era’s sacred cow — sorry ’bout that, Phish! But as I’m a little older and, if not wiser, a little less snarky, and because no one cares what I think about music anymore, I’ve quite enjoyed mostly sitting this one out. So thanks so much for roping me into this. (Cue Al Pacino in Godfather III.)

But here’s my take: Kahan’s music? Generally not for me. And my inner Gen Xer does bristle at the Mastercard ads and candles. But I love that other people love him, and I’m happy Vermont Busyheads have their guy. The Green Mountains could certainly have a worse pop culture ambassador than someone who seems like a genuinely good dude, raises gazillions of dollars for charity and has become the poster child for destigmatizing mental health issues.

CF: The selling-out thing has really done my head in, as the Brits say. I know the music industry is completely different from the one that existed when Neil Young was teaching us not to do beer commercials. I’m aware that even an artist of Kahan’s stature isn’t necessarily going to make a ton of money selling hard copies of The Great Divide, and certainly not from streaming. To premiere your music video at the Super Bowl, you have to buddy up with a credit card company. Want to transcend the algorithms and labyrinthine world of digital marketing? Put a cardboard cutout of yourself hawking soda in grocery stores.

Still, I can’t quite just accept it as part of the biz. Is that a double standard, when I shrug off Bob Dylan selling Victoria’s Secret? Yes. But it gives me pause every time I grapple with my thoughts on his music.

Speaking of, let’s get into the actual music. Following up a massive breakout is never easy. Noah has millions more fans than he did when Stick Season dropped, and expectations are high. When I went to his sold-out charity event in Stowe last year, I learned Busyheads don’t all want the same thing from a new Kahan record. More than a few expressed hope that he’d evolve his sound, while others just wanted Stick Season II.

I can’t say I hear any sort of major evolution on The Great Divide, if that’s what Kahan was attempting. Bringing in Aaron Dessner from the National to coproduce is interesting, and I do hear more shades of indie rock this time around.

What do you guys think? Is The Great Divide a worthy follow-up to Stick Season? Is he treading well-worn paths or showing us the Shape of Kahan to Come?

AS: Unlike you pros, I’m not a present or reformed music critic, so I’m here as a, well, nonprofessional listener. Don’t look to me to compare the production values of The Great Divide to anything else or get nerdy about what Noah is or isn’t doing on it. I care about lyrics and melodies and how they make me feel. I like what I like! And what I like about the new album is exactly what I liked about Stick Season: There’s a specifically Vermonty vibe that resonates more universally than it should.

As someone who grew up in a tiny Vermont town, I think he nails what that experience is for many of us.
Angela Simpson

As someone who grew up in a tiny Vermont town, I think he nails what that experience is for many of us, yet tens of thousands of people who probably don’t know Ben from Jerry are singing along in Fenway Park. Robert Frost said — and I paraphrase — that poetry should be common in experience but uncommon in expression, and for me, that describes Noah’s music. You might like your poetry more oblique than “Whose woods these are I think I know” or “I love Vermont, but it’s the season of the sticks,” and that’s cool. But “You once called me forever, now you still can’t call me back” is a whole story of heartbreak in a dozen simple words. I know what that feels like, but I never would have thought to say it that way. I don’t think The Great Divide is Stick Season II. But it’s definitely Noah Kahan, Chapter 2.

Also, the selling-out thing? Who among us would say no to making bank, for ourselves and a cause we care deeply about? If people are happy to buy something even tangentially related to his music, let them enjoy it. Let sacred cows graze. Does it help that it’s “only” Mastercard and not, say, SpaceX or Tesla?

DB: As for the music of The Great Divide, well, it’s pretty much exactly what I expected. And that’s no dig. In fact, I think it’s precisely the point.

I think of Kahan sort of like another local institution that’s back after some years away: Sweetwaters in Burlington. No one goes to Sweetwaters expecting high-concept culinary wizardry. They go because it’s reliable, incorporates Vermonty flavors, and the atmosphere is pleasant. Isn’t that Kahan’s music in a nutshell?

Kahan putting out a noise-rock record or something after four years between albums would be like taking your folks to Sweetwaters on Parents Weekend and being served spherified olives and a deconstructed Spanish omelette. It just wouldn’t make sense. And you’d be pissed.

Am I reaching? Undoubtedly. But get this: Sweetwaters closed in 2022 … the same year Stick Season was released. (That’s how you nail a tortured metaphor in music criticism, Angela. Don’t try it at home.)

The irony is that even if Kahan wanted to take a big artistic swing, he kinda can’t. He is a pop superstar, no question. But he’s not Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, who have the cultural capital built up to do whatever the hell they want without alienating their fans — or, at least, without worrying about it. Kahan’s not there yet. If The Great Divide were, say, a country album, half of his fan base would feel betrayed. And jerks like you and me, Chris, would probably call him the one thing that’s even worse to a Gen Xer than “sellout”: poser.

Noah Kahan Credit: Courtesy of Patrick McCormack

CF: It’s true that The Great Divide doesn’t reinvent Kahan or his sound. Whether he’d be able to do that and maintain his army of fans is fascinating to consider, but I honestly didn’t think it was ever going to go that way. While Kahan is able to tweak his sound — he did start out as more of a pop songwriter than his current neo-Americana vibe — I never got the feeling that he’d want to. This is a dude who spent years working his ass off in Nashville and Los Angeles to become a successful songwriter. Now that he’s achieved that, I just can’t see him indulging his inner Thom Yorke and making an album full of samples and synths.

Still, The Great Divide is by no means a lightweight offering from a star just going through the motions. The first thing I noticed about the record is that it’s 17 tracks long, with a deluxe 21-track edition clocking in at over an hour and a half. Nothing says “I’m taking this very seriously” more than a double album, and from what he’s said in the days following the release, the album could have been even longer.

I gave up a long time ago trying to guess what is and what isn’t likely to be a hit, but there are a few candidates on the record. And he’s mining rich emotional material; this is an album about what it feels like to get massively famous in a short period of time and how — or if — the fame changes you. “Spoiled” is a fascinating example of where Kahan’s head is these days, as he wonders if his newfound wealth will impact future children. “I’m betting on the north, to drag my ass back down to earth,” he sings.

This is the record where I finally figured out, as Jerry Seinfeld might put it, “What is the deal with Noah Kahan?” What makes him so special in a crowded field of bearded dudes with acoustic guitars is how rooted in empathy his songwriting is and how genuine that feels to his fans.

In 2026, when the very concept of empathy is under attack from billionaires and would-be Big Tech prophets, it feels important for one of the biggest pop stars in America to engage with these kinds of questions. Did I hurt you? What could I have said or done differently?

“You know I think about you all the time / and my deep misunderstanding of your life.” That line, from “The Great Divide,” just might be the thesis of the record. Either that, or when he proclaims “You’re an asshole, after all” on “Dashboard,” a track with the rare glimpse of Dark Kahan.

I was pleasantly surprised by how many tracks stood out to me — like Dan, I tend to find Kahan’s music rather dull. But there are a few moments of genuine exploration and evolution — in particular, opening track “End of August,” a piano-driven, introspective piece of indie rock.

I do wonder if over an hour and a half of Kahan is perhaps too much for anyone other than the hard-core Busyheads. Do we need that many car metaphors and mental health check-ins?

AS: Can you have too many mental health checks in 2026? I think Busyheads will be thrilled with this hour and a half, and there are plenty of entry points here for dilettantes, too, who probably aren’t sitting down to listen to the whole album anyway. Several of the standouts for me are tracks on which he shares songwriting credit with Dessner, particularly “End of August,” with its unexpectedly Clair de Lunar opening and gut-punch lyrics: “It’s a place where most kids just grow up and have kids / Who grow up and have kids who build homes for the rich.”

What you find dull, Chris, I find comforting. Your mileage, and all that. I appreciate that you were both open to what he’s doing here. Remember: Just because millions of people like it doesn’t mean it sucks. ➆

The Great Divide is available on major streaming services.

Standout Tracks From The Great Divide

“Headed North” Kahan skewers precious outsider perceptions of Vermont with a bit of sneer. Stripped-down and rough around the edges — it opens with a guitar flub and resulting f-bomb — it includes lines like this one: “Well, I always wish you well when I pass the old gas station / With the banner on the front that shows how tolerant they are / You’ll get told to go to hell by some summer-time flatlander / With a Coexist-in’ sticker on the bumper of their car.”
— Dan Bolles

“Deny Deny Deny” As close to rocking as Kahan tends to get, the mid-tempo tune has a deceptively upbeat feel, despite the singer-songwriter seething with frustration. Kahan excels at depicting emotional exhaustion, and “Deny Deny Deny” both simmers with pent-up anger and simultaneously tries to talk itself down. “And I used to care to know your secrets,” Kahan sings. “You said you got a guilty conscience, but I ain’t ever seen it.” I understand why so many fans like the cuddly and approachable version of Kahan, but I prefer him pissed off and all but snarling.
— Chris Farnsworth

“Porch Light” Cowritten with Aaron Dessner, “Porch Light” continues Divide’s attempts to plumb the depths of estrangement, the ones we suffer and the ones we cause. Maybe Kahan’s singing about himself here? “I hope you tell me that you’re winding down / That you lost the taste to face the crowd / That whatever made you famous made you sick.” He uses a common metaphor of hope, but I appreciate the aching light-of-day reality he adds to it: “And I’ll pray for you, be in pain for you / I’ll leave the porch light on / Heartbroken, each morning when it’s me that turns it off.”
— Angela Simpson

The original print version of this article was headlined “Talk It Out: The Great Divide, Noah Kahan: Two music critics and a fan dissect the long-awaited Stick Season follow-up from Vermont’s biggest pop star”