"Can anyone explain why it matters?"
To repeat
"It is cultural vandalism to attempt to destroy the identification of the artistic creation of an entire social group/class, in this case the largely agricultural working people.
I grew up being told that people like me never produced anything worthwhile, and we had to go to our betters for our music, our literature, our theatre, paintings...
It turns out that that was not the case; my forbears produced a body of song, music, oral literature that spanned centuries - something to be proud of - not made "irrelevant" at a whim."
Not important to you maybe but, as a working class lad who left school (Secondary Modern) having been told after being late for a maths class because a kindly music teacher tried to help me understand the scales, "What do you need that for - do you intend to earn you wages singing in the street" - he went on "All you need to be able to do when you leave here is to tot up your wage packet at the end of the week" - the fact that working people have created a unique musical culture of their own is bloody important to me and worth defending and passing on.
Jim Carroll