Malcolm, please could you help me understand what your problem is with the Guardian folk albums of the year?

They include a collaborative album that fuses traditional Arabic and British folk music; an album by a member of the Waterson family featuring other acclaimed folk musicians; three albums featuring innovative and exploratory arrangements of traditional songs made by musicians who came out of the Irish traditional music scene; an album of unaccompanied sean nós singing; an album by a young Scottish small pipes player; an album of new recordings of folk songs from the Welsh National Library; an album by a much loved and respected veteran of the English folk scene; and an album by an Irish singer songwriter whose music is deeply steeped in Irish traditional music. I can’t imagine any reason why a folk fan would be upset or disappointed by this selection unless it’s based on some weird complaint that there aren’t enough English records: I guess English folk musicians might be spurred on to make better albums next year. Anyway, if this is music you don’t know, what a treat you’re in for, listening to it for the first time. I’m quite jealous!

By the way you ask “who writes this shite?” I realise this was a rhetorical question asked for effect, but the answer is Jude Rogers, a journalist and long-time folk music fan. She has done a brilliant job of ensuring that lots of folk albums who wouldn’t otherwise get a chance in a national paper get covered. So may be give her a little more respect than calling her work “shite”, eh?