Sparrows vs. Pigeons

I bumped into Andrew in the coffee shop the other day and we discovered we were going to the same festival where Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet were performing. He said he thought the band was "amazing" and "hypnotic". Their new album is self-titled on the Nettwerk label and features Abigail Washburn on banjo and vocals, Bela Fleck on banjo, Casey Driessen on fiddle and Ben Solee on cello. So, that Sunday night, I featured the album. Honestly, I was torn. Should I feature a safe album from a singer/songwriter with simple lyrics/chorus and bridge...or do I stretch out a little and feature something new? After the show I got an e-mail from Fred, another listener, who was very disturbed by the album and said, "don't you know what your listeners want to hear?" He even suggested that I warn listeners in advance so they will know when to turn their radios back on.
The truth is, I think we get it right a lot of the time for all of our listeners, but I'm sure we don't get it right all of the time.
I will admit, I couldn't pronounce a song title written in Chinese, so I skipped announcing the title completely, but I felt exposing our audiences to music created and inspired by travels to Asia was a worthwhile effort. Just wait til you hear Bela Fleck's soundtrack from his project recorded in Tanzania and Uganda! (Bela takes the banjo back to Africa where the instrument originated and produced a documentary, "Throw Down Your Heart".)
So, where do we draw the line? Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck are talented musicians who are experts at their art and very capable of playing traditional folk and old time music. Do we feature an album, even if we think it might push the boundaries of traditional folk?