You are absolutely right. I wrote an article for Songstuff, probably 19-20 years ago (Time flies!), Commerciality, Familiarity and Originality which grappled with the issue from a songwriting perspective. Still relevant today, which is why it is still on the site. Too unusual and it can take so long for people to get into it that it never takes off, a slow burn. Too safe, too familiar and it is easily picked up but completely unchallenging and so people bore of it very easily.
A lot of music today is safe. Made that by business men wanting predictable short term money over risky long term money. That goes for labels and publishers but also production companies, advertisers, tv channels etc.
In honesty, they do want those big hit moments, but that relates more to riding a wave or being somewhere in the late-early adopters to early bandwagon jumper zone.There is a sweet spot.
Artists want hits, but also longevity. Music of the late 60’s into late 70’s is particularly remember because labels and culture was more content to play the long game. Bands were encouraged to experiment, to make mistakes in order to learn. It was common in that time period to get 3 - 5 album deals. That gave artists room to try new things. Now labels (like pretty well everything else) focus on short term goals, maximum return for minimum investment. Pink Floyd are one of the biggest bands in the world, despite having not released a totally new album for a decade, and not having played a gig in a similar time frame. Arguably, talent aside, a major factor in their success was the fact that they heavily experimented in pretty well everything. Sound. Music. Words. Light. Visuals. Graphics. You name it, they tried to innovate. Luckily it was a time when audiences also gave room to artists to experiment.
Just like labels, modern audiences are largely demanding and focused on short term gratification. They are a good deal more sophisticated, and as a result demand the same of their artists.
For artists it is important to realise that those that are truly remembered, those whose music is celebrated, are those that heavily innovated, and who became masters of “reading the room” and who balance innovation with short term appeal. Being safe might earn you a living, but in the long term it is likely to see your music largely forgotten, drowning in a sea of same-y safeness. Think about it. Nobody every achieved greatness by being ordinary.
With music production today, much innovation comes from combination of pre-made. Back when guitar effects were simple, innovation largely came from how the instrument was played. Keyboards had simple capability, but virtually no presets. There were no soft-synths, no sample libraries. People invented their own sounds. Once samplers came along you had to build your own sample libraries, and once libraries were available for sale they were fairly small. Everything funnelled artists towards innovation.
Nowadays artists are spoiled by an endless supply of presets. They don’t have even tweak, they just load a new preset. Back in the day keyboard players were embarrassed to use presets… but then there were only a small number of synths and fellow keyboard players could spot preset patches a mile away. Audiences demanded to be entertained with fresh sounds. Necessity being the mother of invention, so artists invented.
The issue with today’s off-the-shelf preset nirvana is that nothing really drives innovation. Safe is the name of the game, and that is a big problem. Artists risk being completely forgettable. Grey in a sea of other greys.
Like other things in life I think the balance point is given by the 80:20 rule, where 80 is the familiar and 20 is innovation. Taking the innovation 20%, 80% of that should be at the safer end of the innovation spectrum, with only 20% being (ie 4% of the total) being truly innovative. That’s the sweet spot right there.
Its just an opinion.