"a projected collective fantasy reaction to the horrors of modern life"

Dammit, and there was me thinking I liked it because of the noise it made...

"the VOTP series, which masquarades as genuine scholarship, but is in reality Comfort Product for a whole bunch of Folk Myths"

Got me again. I'd been labouring under the impression that VOTP was a bunch of recordings of people singing songs that were important to them, and which sound great.

Just because we don't buy the myth of an idyllic rural England, doesn't mean that those songs didn't get sung.