folk music and pop music have no points of confluence.....
I think that's debatable, insomuch as its been debated endlessly on this site.

the trouble is that everyone's got a fish to fry....the folkies use it to defend utterly unmemorable music, the pop lot want any bit of artistic cred that will hopefully vindicate the latest Britpop/shitpop load of cobblers that the Cowells/Watermans etc are churning out.

Life's too short. Play if you want to, don't if you don't want to.

History will decide, if it it can be bothered.