Ian

OK, I'll indulge your semantic quibbling and substitute admitted for discovered. So now answer my point that popular singers' reputations are made by a broad consensus and then defend yourself against the charge that you belong to a tiny and unrepresentative minority who consistently rubbish these reputations.

As for

It's well know that a number of Big Names who guest in the folk scene have seldom sat in a folk club audience / done a fllorspot

Well known to whom?

The implication is that your (unnamed) Big Names just waltzed into the club circuit they had "seldom" set foot in, got bookings and became Big Names, just like that.

This is chillingly close to Creationist theory and stinks of paranoid envy.