"Lizzie:

This is just a minor outpouring of curmudgeonliness."

Yeah, but I'm afraid that the English folk scene, for me now, is about a major outpouring of curmudgeonliness, most of the time.

It saddens me, Ref, because I feel it drives many people away, and it keeps some damned fine music locked away.

I been through the 'Let's Bash The Corrs' syndrome on the BBC board, many a time, with a certain poster on here. I actually didn't like the French and Saunders 'spoof' off the band either, finding it very bitchy, not funny.

If The Corrs weren't talented, to be honest, I'd still not like it much, but hell, you *cannot* poke fun at those musicians, because they sure know about music! They've been singing it as long as The Young Coppers have, with and in their family, all their lives!

And if the girls all look so alike, and ALL of them are beautiful, is that something they should have to endure nastiness for? They ARE stunningly beautiful, but so what?

Is there some feeling that you can only be taken seriously in the folk world if your plain as a pikestaff, no make up, no erotic movement of your body, no long eyelashes, but you just stand there in yer Doc Martens belting out the song, not giving a damn how you look or who's watching, because hey *you* are a 'traditionalist' worshipping at the Holy Altar of English Folk Music, and it is ALLLLLLLLLL about the song and NOWT else!

Sheesh!

You wanna know what really hacks me off?

When I sit in The Ham Marquee at Sidmouth, listening to BRILLIANT music, and I look at the audience. What do I see? I see, for the most part, a sea of grey headed, serious faces, no-one is moving with the music, everyone is sitting stock still, seemingly listening out for either the 'purity' of the music, or listening for any mistake that they can dissect in the pub later and take pleasure in 'bashing the artist' particularly if he or she is not one of the Inner Circle of English Folk Music.

What I don't see is YOUNGSTERS, moving and grooving to the music.

I don't see, when I've been into The Radway, a whole host of musicians whooping it up, joy on their faces, audiences of all ages clapping to the beat of the music, unable to keep their bodies still. I don't see people dancing...or 'letting go' as they would, say in Ireland or Scotland...I just see 'seriousness' from the older academic-types who've taken over this music and surrounded it with pedantry, sniffing snobbishly at those who don't know exactly where each song/tune came from, or what colour underwear Cecil Sharp was wearing when he knocked on the door of Daisy Lillibottom's cottage, on the third Wednesday in June, after she'd helped to gather in the harvest.

Honestly...but comments such as those that say they no longer listen to The Chieftans because they had the nerve to sing along with 'pop' singers...

I mean????????? WHAT is that all about? I don't understand the thinking about that, apart from some kind of terrible snobbery and this whole darn thing about The Holy Altar of English Traditional Music, which is the *only* kind of music worth listening to.

Well, in a few more decades, the grey headed serious ones ain't gonna be around...and then who'll be the audience?

Will it be the young people, brought in by Seth Lakeman, Kate Rusby and Ronan Keating, who've been so criticised by the Traditional world. Will it be those who loved The Chieftans and the 'pop' stars, only finding that they actually loved The Chieftans music because they listened to it for other reasons to start with?

The Chieftans have it right. Eliza Carthy has it right, not for her 'traddie' reputation, but because Eliza is happy to sing with anyone, spread the music out, bring it all in, mix it all up.

Enya's music is damned beautiful at times. Not only that, but the spiritual feeling of it, often brings comfort to worried or troubled minds. Yet she's constantly ridiculed by those within the English folk world, as are many others.   Why????

Is it because they're successful?

Maybe, just maybe some 'out there' need to take a good long look at themselves and think what they are actually doing, because if it means more to them to keep the music 'pure' and to keep it to themselves, despising others who love it in the 'wrong' way, for the 'wrong' reasons, then one day, their small world of music will be gone forever.

Don't exclude.

Include.

And that goes for most things in life, not just music.

Now I'll leave some in here to carry on sniping about highly successful artists whose music is loved by hundreds of thousands, so that they can all say how their world is being ignored, whilst completely missing the point that it is because they want it kept as 'their world' that it is so overlooked, or avoided like the plague, in the first place.

I'm off to listen to the fabulous Loreena McKennitt now, who probably 'sings songs in the wrong accent' in a 'wishy washy voice' but who could, I've no doubt, run rings around most of the people in this thread, with her knowledge of traditional music from around the world, including English and Celtic, and could fill ANY concert hall around the world, as can The Corrs, Enya and a whole host of other Celtic artists.

Loreena McKennitt - Myspace