Radio Friendly Unit Shifters (A Response to Emily Burke’s question)

This is in response to Emily Burke’s question.
In Emily’s blog, she posed the question, why does our society place more emphasis on the audience's reception of music, instead of the musician's satisfaction. I think that the answer is simple while also being disappointing as well.
First, I would like to state that I feel that the musician feeling a sense of satisfaction and completion after completing or performing a particular piece should be valued. After all, there would be nothing for us to enjoy as music if this portion of the population did not put their own time and effort into completing something for our enjoyment. However, it has to be said that society’s reception of the music is important because society are the ones who are listening. The audience is society, musicians only make up a portion of society, yet all of society listens to music in some form, so of course they will place more importance on their opinion over the musicians who constitute a minority. Whether or not this is the right thing is another story.
Music is not merely something that is enjoyed for pure enjoyment in our world today. We live in a time that what is good is what makes the most money; who is buying, how much they are buying, and what they are buying is what controls what the majority of society is exposed to. Granted there are those individuals who take the time and effort and go out to find music that is pleasing to them rather than choosing from the prepackaged list that corporate moguls are saying is the best music for us. The truth is many people only listen to what is on the radio and what is on the top 20 countdown on VH1.
Our society is ran in a way that glorifies what will make potentially make the most money. That is why in the 90’s we had five different versions of the same boy-band. There songs were carbon copies of each other and they had the same format, but millions of prepubescent girls were in love and spending money, so that is what was in.
Music is formulaic; some songs are made in a way that will appeal to the largest crowd via mediums such as the radio. They are the songs that entice listeners to go out and buy the album which my or may not be like the single that they heard on the radio but the sale was made and that was the goal. These songs are known as radio friendly unit shifters. They are easily enjoyable and tend to make sales or shift units (move the album from the store to your home). For any Nirvana fan out there, the group once recorded a song entitled, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, which was an attack on the very idea itself. The song was anything but radio friendly and included large portions of feedback both in the beginning and throughout the song.
We place more emphasis on the audience’s reception of the music because we are, ultimately, the intended audience, the listeners, and those who are going to support financially those who are creating the music that is if we deem them worthy.

Question: Whose opinion of the music is more important to the musicians themselves? Do they value their own opinion more than their audience’s viewpoint?