I'm not a songwriter, but I play a bit around with synths and stuff for fun a bit. What little I've learned implies crafting a good hook is definitely an equat

I'm not a songwriter, but I play a bit around with synths and stuff for fun a bit. What little I've learned implies crafting a good hook is definitely an equation (that I fail at), and some people in the music industry have figured out that equation better than most people, in a way that targets a large swath of people's brains really well. It goes beyond notes to timbres, themes, lyric content, etc. It's definitely an art - and the writers of such things probably deserve a lot more money than the auto-tuned singers that get really rich from it do. As people who write music/songs/etc refine their craft, they can choose to make something that sounds the best to them, or they can figure out the equations for other people, and sometimes that music that works for all those masses of people also works for them, and if so, that's still pretty darn authentic and just trying to be good. Ergo, I don't think trying to make a song better is a loss in authenticity, but maybe intentionally going in and reusing the same formula, rather than experimenting, is a bit of the same thing we'd say about a band that always sounds the same. If you just chase success, rather than soul or experimentation, you risk something - or at least you risk the opportunity for creating something new that could be even better. Likely though, you're still making a lot of people happy. I think all of these folks are still experimenting, trying to refine that equation, but it's just music that personally doesn't target me, and that's ok. For some reason it works for giant chunks of people, but music I like probably often doesn't work for them.