This thread has raised such a lot of issues in my head that I don't know if I'll be able to get them written down in the right order or whether all of them are relevant; however:

There seems to be a divide similar to that associated with Marmite about Newsom's vocals, and about any unconventional vocal delivery in general. One review of Newsom on Amazon begins, 'This album would be far better if Ms Newsom had any singing talent what so ever'; and there's the above comment about 'silly vocal delivery'. I completely agree with Nigel about the latter being quite amusing on a folk forum - if nobody had ever sung in certain strains of the traditional 'folk' style and then one person started doing it amidst the masses of bel canto and transatlantic pop voices they'd probaby get told that they were silly or talentless as well, just because it would be unusual.

I've noticed that vocals always seem to get the most criticism when taking a slightly different approach to the norm - people playing instruments in an unusual way are more often described as 'using avant garde techniques' or, if they lack any technique at all, 'earthy', yet any vocals that don't sound like 'normal singing' are often deemed either 'bad' or 'weird. Presumably this is a reflexive human response because the human voice is much closer to our consciousness than instruments are, and thus it's more disturbing for people to hear it in an unaccustomed way.

However, she (and Kate Bush, Bjork, Robin Williamson and Bob Dylan and probably plenty of other people who've been told 'you can't sing like that') has become successful, because, thankfully, there are plenty of people who can overcome the built-in reflexes saying 'weird voice' and recognise the art in it, even if they don't initially find it appealing.

I completely love Joanna Newsom's first recording (I haven't heard the second) - I didn't like it quite so much as I do now to begin with (although found it intriguing enough for repeat listens) but like lots of people I've spoken to, most of my favourite recordings are the ones that I had to listen to many times before I really understood them. If I can understand everything about a song the first time I hear it, I can't usually be bothered to listen to it again.

I don't know whether it's a recent thing, or just in the trad. folk scene in England, but I get the feeling that a large section of folk audiences at the moment don't like being challenged. People outside the small inner hub of the folk scene call Joanna Newsom 'folk' or 'alt folk', yet she doesn't appear to be at any UK folk festivals and neither do many other so-called 'wyrd folk' type people. A while ago we used to see Jim Moray, who apparently infuriated a lot of 'traditionalists' for being too strange and yet as far as I could see didn't do anything that outlandish or disturbing - certainly no more strange than what the likes of Steeleye Span used to do, for example. And yet in the 60s and 70s you would often see people such as the Incredible String Band on folk festival listings, and they were just as - if not more so - strange - so what happened? Is it just that these days all the same people are going to festivals but a lot older, more set in their ways and without the drugs?

I missed the seventies by being born just ten months too late, so obviously I wasn't there then, and maybe I'm looking at it all through a rose-tinted YouTube screen. I've heard about the Great Folk Scare Of Dylan Going Electric so I'm sure it wasn't all openness and light, but I get the impression that the UK folk scene then was more diverse then than it is now.

People saying to an artist 'your music's a bit strange' should be a compliment, not an alienation.