Singers need to interpret songs as they see fit. Anything else and they are no longer singers, just mimics (which is fine, and entertaining, but still something different.)

The problem with the latest trend in Irish pubs, which this thread claims is manifested by bands playing songs up-tempo and Pogueish, is that pub owners have decided that their customers are more interested in banging their hands on the tables than in the music itself. This is the live music component of the "dumbing down of America." I believe the pub owners are trying to recreate the atmosphere of St. Pat's day, when you have a large contingent of patrons who are not Irish folk music fans. Then you start to get bands who do everything uptempo and you lose so much of the music.

I think that is why a lot of Irish bands, mine included, are moving away from pub gigs and towards festivals and special events -- to audiences who are specifically there to hear Irish music -- rather than the increasingly indifferent pub crowds. As a hobby band, we have no problems with it. I pity the full-time entertainers who feel pressure, expressed or not, to change their style to suit popular taste and marketability. The music loses when that happens.