First, thanks for an unusually excellent essay.

It's one thing to think you have something to share with the world that is good enough to make you a 'star'. Now becoming a star is the end in itself, accomplished by excelling at manipulating the process. To be sure, some minimum of real talent is still required, but as long as that negligible threshold is met, success is a matter of having the ability to grow the fanbase in ways that have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual songs. Or so it seems to me.