I bought my Pogues album mainly for the "Fairy Tale of New York" song. Happy sigh. What a wonderous piece.

It's taken me a long time

Regarding bar bands, all I can say is dance music -- what I think of as most of the Pogues material -- is dance music. You'd have to be an idiot to want to dance to the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. If some group simply can't think of lyrics, they've chosen a crazy song to liven up for dance. I'm not into dance, so I haven't noticed what you're talking about. Now I have noticed a tendancy around town to emphasise instrumentals over vocals...but that's another story.