Barber beats are just a serving plate full of soft peppermint candies individually wrapped, but you can kinda see that the wrappings were just printed over old recycled wrappers of other candies.
I think it's more like spicy food. Tons of different ways to make food spicy. It's generally a little more rough than other "easier" foods, and some people just can't handle it at all.
And of course, there's always going to be ultra-spicy food that will leave even fans of less-spicy food to wonder "Does anybody actually eat that for fun?"
Folk (thinking specifically John Prine, Todd Snider) is like one of those really fantastic casseroles your mom would make on Friday night, the type you ate until you wanted to burst, and felt safe and loved.
Left wing folk (Phil Ochs, et al) is like a vegan General Tso. You're sure you're going to be missing something, it can't be as good as the original, it has an agenda... But it turns out to be fucking amazing, and way better than the one with chicken