"I think Sinead's comment about "dismissing" folk music, as well as the comments about needing a "bridge" into folk music, are very telling, because they do imply that people judge by what they're fed,"

Those were the points made that I found particularly intriguing too, and indeed I'm tempted to lean towards a similar conclusion likewise - with no disrespect intended to Sinead who argued her case well.

I'd say I was similarly inclined as Artful (and arguably many 'traddies' if one can go by the posts about other music here) with an interest in an eclectic variety of music throughout my teens/twenties (in my thirties now). Though I'd rather not come over too heavy about "youth today" being passive consumers compared to the good old days when we were all funky free-spirits and the man didn't have us in his pocket, no sir! I think the branding and packaging of music as product has been going on for as long as their has been a music industry. And as Tam says it would seem a disempowered "diet-soda" voice / image (can we separate the two?) of woman has been around for quite some time now. What interests me is it's seemingly high-profile presence in popular contemporary folk in particular - which not only misrepresents the majority of women's voices out there singing folk today in the pubs and clubs, but also runs counter to 'the tradition' itself. If I think of the working-class women who would have sung these songs once, I see women who lived bloody tough lives, grafting hard, child-rearing, dying young, oppressed by their economic masters, and so-on. But importantly I see strength in there, born of brutal necessity. I hope I'm not romanticising anything too much here like "there was was a real woman!", but I must confess that I find popularised stereotypes of woman as some kind of fey, immature and vulnerable girlish creature, provoke a degree of ambivalence and discomfort in me at the least.. It's not an image I associate to working-class women, but to the upper classes who preferred their women passive and 'hobbled'. Don't get me wrong I'm not bitching at women who like to wear their hair long and don a pretty frock (done plenty of that my time!) I'm just musing on broader implications of the whole 'branding' thing. As said, I think saying much more than that, is possibly beyond the scope of this thread. Though I've probably said too much already!