The artist must not only attempt to convince a record company to distribute and promote his or her music, but is also constricted by the ever-narrowing parameters of radio formatting. If you don't fit the mold, you're out in the cold. Creative or not, if one steps outside the boundaries of one of these commercial formats, it can be the kiss of death. One could argue that this is nothing new and has always been the case. Audiences supposedly rioted when they first heard Stravinskys' Rite of Spring because it sounded so unlike anything they had ever heard.
People seem to prefer to be mindlessly entertained than to be challenged.
But even if that has always been true, I maintain that our artistic environment today is getting worse and not better. There is no atmosphere today which can cultivate a Stravinsky. People are obsessed with music at an almost unprecedented level, but the quality of what they are obsessed with is, in my opinion, in a general decline. This is profound and true. Music is all around us.