Adorno and Horkheimer's theory to music

Adorno and Horkheimer came together to write a theory on what happens to an artists/band once they have been signed by a record company. The theory was that artists are no longer individual but pumped through the 'machine' that is the industry, creating nothing more than the same thing over and over. They believe that individuality does not exist within this industry, that for the artist to make the record label money - which is the record labels main priority - they are made into the 'norm' for their genre. The need for commodity within the industry means that the record label needs to sell an artist and considering the rising use of piracy, this means using other products such as perfume, souvenirs, appearances in adverts and so forth. The record label takes what could be a potentially individual, different artist and make them the same as every other artist within their genre - to be sure they will make money. We as an audience, though we always ask for new, unique acts are no better as we buy into all of this. As an audience, we like the artists that record labels produce, because they are fashionable and because we would most likely reject any real, different and out of the blue acts that don't quite fit in with what we have seen before. Therefore, the industry is nothing more than a machine, processing the artists the same way they do day in, day out. An example would be Pixie Lott who went from this:

To This:

and other artists like Nichole Sherzinger who since being signed have been sold through their femininity and sexual qualities -