"To me the term new shanty is a bit of a contradiction - a shanty, ie a song made for a job of work must have by definition a cut-off up to the point when sailing vessels were used for commercial shipping as opposed to sail training. Anything after this can only be a sea song written in the idiom of a working song. Even in the days of cpommercial sailing vessels there were contempory songs gthat were used for work, particulalry pumping songs.

Probably a subject for another thread - the boundary between popular songs being used at sea, and popular songs being parodied/sailorised sufficiently to be classed as a bona-fide shanty."

My feelings are that shanties served a purpose... a work shanty had a meter that served the job at hand.. and a foc's'le shanty served to while away time for the crew. Once the jobs/work changed at sea with new technology, traditional shanties should have died out... and almost did.

BUT... songs that were once restricted to shipboard and maybe sailortown because they were too rough, vulgar and common for landman's society still lived on with those who sang them .. and listened to them.

An often overlooked feature of shanties is that they were singable... very singable. They had to be to do the job of bringing things together in unison. Tunes & lyrics were taken from many sources and fashioned together for a new purpose onbaord ship - and that practice seems to have gone on after the age of sail and moved to the land as well.

A waltz can be played and danced to in a grand ballroom... or in a living room. Or just played for the enjoyment of listeners. New waltzes are being written today, though very rarely danced to. Does this make them less a waltz?

Perhaps we should refer to some as traditional - meaning they were originally used during a defined period- and others as contemporary or whatever for those that have the correct meter & "feel" of a shanty and could be used for the original purpose if needed. I see shanties still serving a purpose... just one rather different than that originally needed.