I feel like the intro to the article is understating the amount of work an individual pop artist puts into their work, even if it is supported by a team of engineers/writers/producers. I like the interview, however.
I agree. The pop product is primarily a persona and a brand rather than the art itself (though it can be both), but it's not like that's not ever true of niche artists, it's just packaged differently and on a different scale.
To me, the music is a bland mixture of game and elevator music. It totally sounds like sequenced music without using any expression. Minimal, in this case, is just a qualification of the amount of control over the outcome, not an art philosophy.
I like the music, but for anyone just skimming and wondering why this is HN-worthy, it appears to be because the musician uses BeepBox and similar simple browser-based sequencers to make music. That is legitimately impressive.