M&S, N&TW and so on are fairly mainstream pop/rock acts with one foot in indie/alternative music and a nodding acquaintaince with "folk" music. However, from a marketing/media/pigeonholing point of view they are as likely to be called "folk" as anything, because they play some acoustic instruments and they have a vaguely pastoral vibe to some of their stuff. Neither band - nor much of the stuff in a similar vein - is to my taste, not because it's not real folk or anything as crass as that, but because it's more R2-friendly, anodyne folk-lite destined for the coffee tables of those who find Keane and Coldplay too edgy.

I'm not particularly interested in the concept of a "third revival" except as an amusing numerological parlour game. What I am interested in is people who are making music rooted deeply in tradition (including original music with all the right reference points) ploughing their own furrow and shaking off some of the mores and conventions around how traditional music should be arranged and presented in 2010. There are some brilliant singers and players on the traditional music scene, but I can't help feeling the general trend is towards a revival-lite, increasingly uniform sound which doesn't really challenge or take the listener outside of a fairly safe and comfortable folkzone. I'd draw a parallel with rock & pop - most of what I hear I wouldn't touch with a bargepole, but there have always been a core of artists who have not been afraid of taking a more exploratory and less mainstream approach. In the past - particularly in the 1970s - the folk revival has also had this, be it Shirley Collins, Mr Fox, Peter Bellamy, Ray Fisher or Pentangle. I'm not really sure who their equivalent are in the current decade. I can think of a handful of people I would put in a similar class (and a slightly bigger group who seem to straddle, to some degree or another, the new mainstream revival sound and something with a bit more bite), but I also think that many of the current crop of younger singers and players of traditional music are happy with an increasingly codified sound. That's not to slag them off or question in any way their skills and talents and commitment to what they are doing, but simply to comment that as a listener I rarely pick up much of the sort of alt vibe I find with the sort of rock, jazz, non-folk acoustic music or Americana I also listen to.

Could I also add that I'm not talking here about (for instance) grafting on dadrock-style stadiumtastic drumming to conventional 2010-style trad, but something a little more intangible and subtle in approach and attitude.

And please understand that this is just my personal opinion in terms of what I want to hear as an enthusiastic and discerning (!) music listener. There's surely room for this sort of thing too.