...what artists want to achieve. Do they want to bring a message or an emotion across to their audience or is it all just another way to seperate consumers from their money?

Artists usually want some of both (hopefully more of the former). Their publishers want the later (with the 'liberated' funds going, of course, mostly into publisher's, not the artist's pockets), the rationale being that an artist can get any semblance of popularity only through publisher's marketing machine.

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green