It’s crazy, they all sound the same. If I read a promotion about a new male singer, I know exactly what he is going to sound like before I hear him sing one note, and I’m always right: A castrato who then goes into showing how high he can sing like it’s an athletic competition. The Bee Gees or Michael Jackson may have had a lot to do with it, but I think it’s more about being conformist. None of them will take chances about being different or maybe it’s the record companies who won’t? I don’t know, but todays music is absolutely unlistenable to me today. The only thing on the radio is either talk radio, maybe one station for classical or jazz and the rest if it is castratos combined with gangsta rap.
Psy was basically a small time operation. Since he was not even a top star back then, it may have been more or less one man operation. He did not expect it to go viral except may be a local hit. He did not do any heavy promo.
On the other hand, these recent entertainers are launched by big business operation from the start.
As always has been the case, true original content will be come out of virtually unknown talent with little financial backing. I suspect these big media operation drowns out and overshadow new burgeoning talents. We have to wait until the reigning model collapses and it opens up a new opportunity. Since these corporate guys are good at efficiently pushing their product even when the content becomes stale, it may take longer than we hope.