In another thread, about Nic Jones:

yes it is understated, but in my opinion it is much better than bob dylan's, in my opinion dylan is a mediocre singer

I didn't have such a definite preference; yes Dylan is technically crap, but he does put SOME emotional expressiveness into his singing, whereas the Nic Jones link that was about combines brilliant guitar technique with a complete emotional blank in the vocals.

Which points up a preference I have always had, for vocals which actually communicate the feeling in the text. This isn't a matter of genre, though in some genres (like rembetiko or Arabic singing) you would just about never find a darkly emotional text set to light boppy shadowless music. Two versions of the same (non-folk) song:

John Renbourn

Theo Bleckmann

Renbourn turns it into party music (probably a children's party in silly hats). Bleckmann sounds like he actually understands what the song is about.