Whilst I agree with most of your post, Iain, it is unfair, I feel, to criticise the 54 descriptors. They describe what was folk music in 1954 and the centuries before that as far as the western world is concerned. That the way the people's music now evolves is different, more conscious, was bound to happen eventually.

What makes the folk scene a great place to be for me is that the old folk music and the new sit happily side by side for the vast majority of us. The only place this causes problems is on Mudcat with threads like this.