Whether a ballad is sung well or badly obviously makes a big difference, but it isn't part of the definition of what makes a ballad.

Then there's the question of what well sung means in this context. There are other traditions and other ways of doing it, but my own preference is for the approach which has been traditional in ballad singing in the British Isles, which means understated when it comes to emotion, with the words and the story in the driving seat rather than the singer.

But I disagree with the assumption some people have that modern narrative-ballads (a useful term that side-steps issues of definitions) can only be viable set in an antiquarian setting, in olde worlde language. That's why I posted Larry Otway's ballad of Amadou.

And here's another modern day modern ballad, this time one I wrote:

Black Rosie came from foreign parts,
from Africa we're told,
and Rosie came to England,
where she walked the streets of gold.

And when Rosie came to London
she was working as a maid,
and Rosie had no papers,
So they used her as a slave.

Till Rosie she could take no more,
so she crept away in flight,
with a little plastic suitcase,
on a rainy London night.

But she didn't speak the language,
and she couldn't ask for help,
and Rosie was illegal.
It was Rosie for herself.

And she dodged around and she lodged around,
and she got back on her feet,
for Rosie was a fighter,
and she'd never yet been beat.

And in time she had a little son,
by a man from Nottingham,
and he used to knock her round at times,
he was that kind of man.

Sp Rosie she took flight once more,
and this time she went far,
and she took her little girl with her,
and she took his daddy's car.

And she drove and drove through a winter's night,
and into a winter's dawn,
and she stopped in a city in the North,
where she met with a man named Sean.

And Sean he worked on the North Sea rigs,
and a decent kind of man,
and they lived for a year as man and wife,
and they had a baby son.

And Rosie learnt to talk in time
and they made a few good friends,
and they looked ahead to a future bright.
But that's not how the story ends.

For the rig blew up, with the men aboard,
and Sean among the dead.
But Rosie had no papers,
and they said they were not wed.

And they said she was illegal,
and she'd have to go back home.
Oh,the kids could stay in England,
but Rosie, she must go.

And she begged them and she pleaded,
sure there had to be some way.
But Rosie was illegal,
and they said she could not stay.

And the police came knocking on the door,
saying "Rosie, open wide",
but Rosie never answered,
nor the children by her side.

And the police they knocked on through the door,
and they found them lying there.
The children lying so still and quiet,
with dead Rosie kneeling there.

And the Council paid to burn them,
and a few good friends were there.
But she wasn't quite a Christian,
so she never had a prayer.

But if God is in his heaven,
then he's looking down today.
And he's looking down on England,
and he's saying "I will repay."