I think Mr Smith as an example of modern pop music - he has absolutely nothing interesting in either his persona, his visual image, or his voice, he is the equivalent of vocal lift music.
That said, millions of people love exactly that - they don't want anything that does anything except entertain them in a 'don't-really-have-to-pay-attention way, so there is a lucrative career to be had presenting that style of image and music.
In a country of sixty-five million people, if sixty-four million of them think you stink, but the other million buy your records, then you are winning.