I think a lot of it has to do on someone's feeling that their product will attract listeners and their audacity to shop their product to listeners.
We have a scene over the last 40 years that has been made up of groundbreaking acts that were not considered "real musicians" by music circles and insiders.
In the sixties, the companies did something smart and got people outside from the circles to see exactly what listeners might like. Not that they even liked acts like The Beatles, they were schrewd enough and also had an eye for the public's interest.
I wonder how many of these acts chances would be nowadays.
This very indie spirit in the early rock scene started to collapse when record companies once again made musicians and producers in popular acts the talent scouts and in the name of musicians artistic freedoms.
Not that that is bad in itself, but there is that bias with them being insiders.
The companies don't want to pay those schrewd outsiders a big bonus, and the musicians and producers have favors to owe.
What may have been unique and different with a musicians own spin is now called incompetent.
No kind of research as to where anyone outside of their box may like that certain musician.
I can't count how many times some conformist in that inside tract has lectured me on what listeners like when I already shopped my stuff around to know what a target listener may like or not like.
That is how I look at "way to ne a winning musician" articles.
It may be useful to learn the blues as an example to enrich the songwriting, but some are not blues men and have their own thing they worked toward that can't be so easily defined.

It all hinges on what you make of the art an what you are willing to compromise.
I would have to feel wholely inspired myself.

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