Interesting read. I wonder what direction the music industry will take nowadays. I do agree that the music industry is headed towards the route of marketing as opposed to relying solely on the talent of the artist and the sales. One has to only look at the success of "beats by dre" which were spammed on every music video ever released by Interscope, and were also spammed on American Idol which averages viewing figures of about 20 million an episode.

Perhaps that is the direction the music industry is heading to and is most likely the reason you'll see more Katy Perry's in the charts than you would more talented acts. That said, this is an interesting read.