GSS: there is alot of difference between someone writing a broadsheet 200 years ago to sell in a local community for a few pennies, and manufactured boy bands who have no artistic control over their music, it may be a matter of degree but is a fucking great huge degree. the singers who bought the broadsheets were free to interpret the songs and alter them, the modern popboy bands that are put together for the sole purpose of commercial gain are told exactly what they have to sing, how to sing it, think about it, it is veryt different

There you go again making huge blanket generalisations about the modern and pop music scene. Certainly, as I said above, SOME acts are "manufactured", but they're a quite small percentage of what's out there....and I don't think they're quite as subject to control as you seem to think....or no more so than some of the musicians of the early 20th century who were tightly managed and "fed" their songs from a relatively small group of composers.

The majority of people in the modern pop industry these days are self-starters, and, due to the availability of inexpensive recording, sound engineering and editing applications, able to record and produce their own music without being in thrall to any big recording label or commercial organisation.