The music industry is weird because the releases that are commercially successful are so disconnected to the releases that pushes music forward.
Once every 5 to 10 years we get an artist that manages to bridge this gap, and pushes music forward while increasing commercial success 10 fold. But the music industry kinda needs this gap to be as wide as possible so that commercial throughput doesn't depend on the few talented participants blessed with resonating with the zeitgeist (even fewer are capable of resonance).
Even though this gap reduces the total commerical success, it is technically more commercially viable because the zeitgeist is too random for most to stake their livelihoods on.