Mike: "I believe that it is fair to criticize original songs when the songwriter is performing them."

That's unkind - you should wait until he finishes.

Russ: I'm not sure (as an old fart) that my tastes have as quite as much narrowed as changed - I used to love singer-songwriters and dislike traditional, now I like the traditional and am not so find of singer-songwriters. Blanket generalisation there...but not being a teenager, teenage angst doesn't have the same attraction and I'm not about to change the world politically.   I don't think that I'm listening to less music, though possibly deeper rather than wider.

I'm not sure about the thread title. A plague of songwriters? There doeesn't seem to be a painful excess of them around, so no. A plague on Songwriters, well, maybe, when the mood is on, but I suppose they've got to learn their trade somewhere. One good new song will forgive a lot of numb bums.