For a moment let’s imagine a typical country music fan. She’s a working class woman in a small town with a couple kids. If she wants to see her favorite artist in concert a pair of tickets can easily cost a couple hundred dollars. She might have to hire a babysitter. Maybe she’ll have to drive two hours in a gas-guzzling pickup. Parking at the venue probably won’t be free. Beer and refreshments will definitely be overpriced. And if she buys a CD and a tee shirt, the total cost of the evening might run over $300. If she works full-time for $10 an hour, that’s about a whole week’s paycheck after deductions.
She’s not going to go to those lengths unless the artist is someone she is passionate about, It’s important to her to feel as if the artist has the same wants and needs that she does, the same dreams and disappointments, and the same ups and downs. But she’s not likely to spend a week’s pay unless that artist is also someone she idolizes, someone who seems larger than life. .
Singers create their images through the songs they sing, so you have to create songs that help make their fans adore them if you want to have commercial success. A male artist needs to come across as someone men want to be and women want to be with, or vise versa for female artists.
It’s a good when songs show singers being vulnerable because that helps fans relate to them. But if the character you create for the singer to portray in your song comes across as unappealing – weak, insecure, old, out-of-shape, unkind, immoral, etc. – it’s going to be hard to get a cut by an artist who is trying to fill stadiums, and cuts by artists who do are the ones that pay enough to let you quit your day job.