I believe Cajun, Old Timey and other “folk” developed styles have unique appeal because they do not follow the usual musical note relations ships.
Why would you play a “C” box in “G” when the cords do not really match? Why tune a banjo to a G Modal tuning or have the drones humming on the bag pipes etc.
The music professional might explain that we are playing outside of the standard major or minor note scale and into one of the other music mode scales with different note intervals.
To many, myself included, this is interesting. However, I believe we listen because we simply like the sound.
i grew up in south la, but did not like cajun music at the time. I would only hear it on television or something, and I'd go turn it off.
I moved to California, and some girlfriends kept dragging me to take cajun dance lessons because "I should know how to do this already". Then I started dancing well to it, and was hooked. And then I know what was missing. It is DANCE music, not so much LISTENING music. Even today, though I listen to a lot of cajun, and now more zydeco, I'm STUDYING the music, to hear what I can learn how to do. There's only a couple of cajun bands that I'll listen to for enjoyment: Balfa Brothers, Balfa Toujour, Racines. Even with zydeco, I'm studying a lot, though it is more in the listening realm for me.
But beginning to play the music was a game changer. First, it is a somewhat forgiving genre for beginners, so that helped. But that fact helped me to take to step I always wanted to take, to be a musician. Though I'm highly critical of my playing (particularly some timing issues), I can get people dancing. And being on the other side of that line (dancer vs musician) is rewarding.
I remember a couple of years ago, when I started to appreciate Adam Hebert's singing, that I felt I had turned some sort of corner. I used to hate to listen to him. But something percolated down into me. And now that I know he wrote a bunch of songs that are now standards, I have more respect.
I believe many folks have forgotten what the original purpose was of many of the folk "genre" ( I don't like the word but we're stuck with it)
Music I like has "drive" and rhythm. It is a core thing; a pulse, like a heartbeat, whether Cajun, Quebec, Appalachian, fiddle tunes, Irish, French whatever...