It's funny how sometimes the worst aspects of a subculture or genre come to be regarded as the stereotypical example of that genre (from an outsider's viewpoint) like what has happened with rap - I know a lot of people who dismiss the whole spectrum of 'folk music' because of what they mistakenly think it consists of. Now the term 'roots' music is starting to describe some types of folk and blues, maybe because people see it as a trendier term, or maybe because it describes the type of music according to different criteria - increasingly there are fusions between the different styles/genres that are hard to pigeonhole - which I think can be a good thing. The history of music over the last 50 or 60 years is full of successful fusions of form and content to create new styles of music. I like listening to new music, even if I don't exactly like everything I hear - it's worth it for the occasional treasure I find

Cheers,
Quokka