Doug
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I think you're missing the point. It's not that non-commodified music was "better" in terms of virtuosity. But people did have a different relationship to it than they do now. Instead of being either an aspiring producer of songs that sell in an anonymous market, or a passive consumer, people were consumers and producers at the same time. This added a different, "organic" dimension to the entire process. What rang false to a degree about 60s folk music was that it was an imitation of earlier forms by people who were by then thoroughly urbanized. The same can be said of romanticisms in general. The answer to commodification is not to go back to the good old days. But those days did contain possibilites that the triumph of the market precludes, and should be reintegrated into any non-alienated society of the future.