Naah, I'm not having it. This isn't about demanding adherence to the 1954 Definition from people who've never heard of it, or berating programmers for playing Billy Bragg instead of Sam Larner. It's about what purports to be a response to The Full English - and the response seems to consist of "ooh, folk, who do we know that's folk?", followed closely by "and what have they done that's a bit different?". The first step's deeply conservative, the second one (ironically) is even more so - it's the old "like folk only different" itch being scratched yet again.

The practical effect is to drag traditional artists back into the business of producing novelty, rather than giving them room for the real difference and strangeness of traditional material to be heard. So we get the Unthanks and Kate Rusby, both doing cover versions - that's a bit different, a bit alternative... No, it's not. The straightest, blandest, this-is-a-song-by-Jon-Boden-est reading of a traditional song is more 'alternative' than most of the songs on that list. I'd have expected better from Radio 2, let alone 6Music.