Let me rephrase that. In my last post I did what Seligmanson erroneously accused me of earlier.

It seems to me that some folk musicians have a problem with people reviewing/critiquing/forming an independent opinion about their music. It's almost as if they think they can put it out in the public arena with the expectation that the public will only interact with it as customers and that they don't have any right to form an opinion other than the one the musician thinks they ought to have. A bit of hypocrisy creeps in, too: they don't like critics or reviewers getting their evil paws on their work - yet if they happen to get a good review it's quoted all over their websites! It's a pathetic and juvenile attitude. In any other type of music, other people writing about that music is accepted as normal - only in folk does it seem to be reviled and railed against in the way it is on Mudcat. This - and I'm sorry, but Betsy's bitter little song is a perfect example of this attitude - is what I mean when I say folkies are so f***ing precious. If they can't stand the idea of their public exercising their critical faculties, they should maybe keep it in the bedroom.

In short, if you think you're good enough to do paid gigs, put out CDs and engage with the outside world, you should be big enough to accept that others will have a whole variety of different opinions about what you do. Whether musicians like it or not, it's a healthy and positive thing and their Taliban-like attempts to stamp out freedom of opinion do them no favours.