The music industry is capitalistic - which means that it's purpose is to produce money selling music, not to produce music for its own sake. If you don't understand that going in, they just squeeze whatever commercial music you may have out of you and dump you when they think you're played out.

One key factor in the very simple equation (popular music + promotion = money) is the personality or charisma of the artist. Since personality is a primary factor in determining what is easy to sell and what isn't (keep in mind that 99.9% of the audience is not schooled in music, doen't recognize art, has little or no time that they wish to devote to determining true originality or quality from imitation and pap, and sees music as an add on to whatever else they're doing), the music industry promotes performers that rate high on the charisma chart. All that matters in this context is that people like you enough to spend money on you. If you have some talent, that's OK, just don't let it get in the way of your popularity.

All that being said, if you want to make music - no one is going to stop you. If you want to make recordings of that music, the technology is out there. All you have to do is induce whatever other musicians you may need to play along. How you do that is another discussion. If you want to sell your recordings, you can always do that, too; door-to-door, from your soapbox on the corner, from whatever stage you can talk yourself onto. If you want to sell enough recordings to make a living. . .welcome to the music industry, no unsolicited tapes accepted, have your people call their people, and let's do lunch.

Remember one thing: They can package it, they can sell it, they can dress it up real pretty and make more of it than it really is. Hell, they can even copy it. Or steal it. But they can't create any music that is genuine and original on their own. Only a real musician/artist can do that. Whether anyone buys it or not, if you can make your own music you've done something that the music industry can't.