Shambles says:

Even if categories are applied from the outside for legitimate analytical and descriptive purposes, from a position of some considerable knowledge, like Sandy above, they are essentially meaningless and will always be a matter of personal opinion.

But Shambles,

ALL categories are "essentially meaningless and a matter of personal opinion." The hallmark of symbols (eg most words) as a form of communication is that they bear no natural relationship to the thing they refer to; they are at some point, by someone, arbitrarily assigned. Then, if they are to be widely used, a group of people must come to a consensus about their meaning. So if Sandy and Malcolm and I have a rough consensus, then we can use the category of "traditional musician" to communicate. That's all such categorical words are for, communicating.

Look, it's not going to change Frank P or Frank W's singing one bit no matter what I call them, so in that sense you're right. The words are useless! But if Sandy and I want to have a conversation, they sure come in handy!

BTW, Don't be too hard on individual journalists. I do understand where you're coming from there, but it's not always clear what journalists think, or even what they originally wrote, from what comes out in print! Mainstream journalists usually have to address a wide audience and therefore can't be subtle because the management feels that 95% of their readers don't care about the subtleties. I have been a journalist in mainstream outlets, but now write only for specialty folk publications, because I had my subtleties of meaning "dumbed down" by newspapers and popular magazines one too many times for comfort. Since I don't do it for my daily bread, it was no longer worth it to me to have stupid things attributed to me for the paltry money they offered!