I could not agree less with WMD. If people wish to write about a contemporary issue in the idioms of metal (any of its many genres - I once got into a real flame war about the limits of "doom"), ragga, country, power-pop or whatever by all means they may do so, and the song may be none the worse, but if it is anything to do with "folk" then it requires the connection with the folk - who we are which is but an extension of what we were. Thus the word has consistent meaning across "folk-lore" "folk tale" folk-myth" "folk-dance" and "folk arts" generally.

The insistence that no form that has been used is of contemporary application is, in the limit, absurd, but moreover, the genres that WMD would prefer to use are in fact rooted in a tradition - a more recent tradition, and an alien tradition to England or many parts of the UK - namely the forms of "country" which in many parts are indebted to to blues forms or what might now be called "Mobo". In short they owe more to American (mostly US) cultural impperialism than to the UK. There is no reason to advocate that the people of England, Scotland, Wales, and, slightly more distantly, Ireland should abandon their own roots and seek to become cuckoos in another nest.

The essence of the study of folk music or any other folk art is that it cleaves to and grows from the tradition of that folk art.