The Bon Iver Effect: How Justin Vernon Redefined Collaboration, Genre, and Influence
Photo credit: Graham Tolbert
Fifteen years ago, Justin Vernon was recording in a remote Wisconsin cabin, chasing catharsis with a guitar and a falsetto. Today, Bon Iver is less a band than a living, breathing design system—blurring genre, medium, authorship, and expectation. With the release of SABLE, fABLE, Vernon continues to expand what it means to be a contemporary artist. But to understand this moment, we have to understand the ecosystem he’s quietly helped shape.
From Isolation to Interconnection
Bon Iver’s story has always been one of reinvention. For Emma, Forever Ago made Vernon a folk icon. Bon Iver, Bon Iver turned him into a composer. 22, A Million scrambled the syntax of songwriting. i,i settled into something spiritual. With each project, Vernon’s sound became harder to pin down—and more widely imitated.
But it’s his presence in other artists’ work that reveals his full impact.
Kanye West’s “Lost in the World,” “Monster,” and “Hold My Liquor” were built around Vernon’s samples and vocals.
James Blake, Taylor Swift, The National, Vince Staples, Bruce Hornsby—Vernon has moved seamlessly across the industry, contributing to each without overwhelming them.
In an era where many artists build empires, Vernon has built networks—collaborative, experimental, often quiet. His signature isn’t loud. It’s connective.
Genre as Medium, Not Category
What makes Bon Iver especially important to this moment in music is his refusal to sit still.
Folk, electronic, gospel, ambient, hip-hop—Vernon has dipped into each without needing to dominate or define them. His work resists easy classification, and yet it always feels distinctly his. That contradiction—rooted and formless—has become a model for artists trying to push beyond algorithmic genre boxes.
22, A Million in particular was a watershed moment: glitch gospel, abstracted folk, vocal processing used not to disguise but to disorient. It paved the way for a generation of artists (many in Vernon’s own orbit) to treat the voice not as message, but material.
The People Collective and the Power of Decentralized Creativity
In 2016, Vernon helped launch 37d03d (a.k.a. PEOPLE), a global artist collective and label that emphasizes collaboration over commerce. Artists gather in temporary residency—often without knowing what they’ll make—and release music outside the traditional cycle.
It’s less label than laboratory—and it mirrors Vernon’s belief that music is a shared process, not a product pipeline.
Through this platform, Vernon has supported music from Aaron Dessner, Feist, Moses Sumney, Anaïs Mitchell, Justin Vernon & TU Dance, and Big Red Machine, among others. The ripple effect is clear: a looser, more experimental spirit now runs through major label pop, indie folk, and avant-electronic alike.
Bon Iver as Infrastructure
Vernon may still be the center of Bon Iver, but the project’s real genius is how it recedes—into collaboration, into abstraction, into process. He’s not just making music. He’s helping redefine how music is made, shared, and interpreted.
With SABLE, fABLE, that idea comes full circle. It’s an album rooted in Vernon’s sonic language, yes—but it’s also the product of years spent building trust, systems, and space for others to move within it.
Bon Iver isn’t a genre. It’s not even a band.
It’s a way of listening.
