Not much clarification to be had from me, I fear. I've just about reached the age now where I no longer see why I should be patient and reasonable with the kind of fools who write this sort of thing. Does he really go on to snigger about arran sweaters, beards and fingers? It's hard to tell from the extract what he thinks of as being "traditional folk", though I doubt if it's what most of us would understand by the term. Perhaps he was frightened by the Wurzels while in his cradle.

He seems to be taking the narrow-minded and subjective (and terribly old-fashioned) "nothing produced at home is worthwhile; everybody else's music is cool, though" line that the lazier music pundits have been happily trotting out for -literally- several hundred years. His remarks are indeed rather racist, and would rightly be seen as such if he were to use those same words of traditional Punjabi folk music, for example. Anyone who talks about "relevance" where music is concerned begs the question, relevant in what sense? and to whom? I don't see him addressing that, though perhaps the rest of his piece is full of intelligent and considered analysis. I expect you'd have mentioned that, though.

Unfortunately, the continual, dreary, repetitive sniping of pompous little fashion-victims in the media is a cross we have to bear these days. I daresay a little contrived controversy keeps the money coming in, but you'd think that, if they had any imagination worth speaking of, they wouldn't have to resort to knocking over the same old straw man every time.