They discovered if they could sell music to a lot of those people, they could sell a lot more records. The whole music business in the United States is based on numbers, based on unit sales and not on quality. It's based on giving presents of large packages of dollars to play records on the air. Modern music is people who can't think signing artists who can't write songs to make records for people who can't hear. Just because you can record, doesn't mean you should.
Major labels buy that something, and try to make more out of it.
Actually I don't know if honesty is a strength or some kind of weakness. I don't kiss the world's ass. I mean the Cranberries could go on and take a shit and the people would probably love it. In fact, I believe smaller is actually better. When we had a record blow up, we really knew how to put it through its paces.