Again, I offer the idea that, whatever it is, it isn't exactly folk music at this point in time, because it neither speaks to, nor speaks for any group with a collective identity--meaning a group that is conscious that it is insulated and differentiated from the general society by some common criteria, that those criteria have priority over things that that would include them in the general society, and that, because of that differentiation, they have a shared destiny .

This definition comes from the work of sociologists Verta Taylor and Nancy Whittier, and I use it, rather than the idea of "community", because in it allows for the inclusion of social political groups, like the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the labor movement,   and various social idealist movements, as well as various segments of the youth culture, who have their own bodies of music. This in addition to groups like cowboys , miners, sailors, etc who we typically regard as having their own folk music.

Maybe another way of saying it is that the music would have to be connected to a group that identify with each other for reasons other than the music.

I throw this stuff out, because it gives some insight into how folk music might have come to be extremely popular at a particular period of time, and how that popularity might then have passed by, leaving a much diminished and fragmented audience.


Again, I am not disparaging in any way--there are good, even great musicians, songwriters, and performers out there, and they each have their own, often overlapping audiences, there is just no cohesive community to support them anymore.