Now this may come as a shock:

I have sympathy and an understanding of the message that Jim Carroll has tried to put across. This by him I know definitely rings a bell and strikes home:

"A definition would do, failing that, a reason why folk clubs should be allowed to be swamped until it becomes uncomfortable to sing folk songs in them"

Experienced that feeling many times, and Jim is right IF that prevails then you kill off the traditional side and are left with something that you could only honestly describe as being "attempts at pop that didn't quite make it".