Cormac wrote:
.... If she was the sort of artist to do meet and greets and appear on BBCs One Show to flog her latest record, then she probably wouldn't be the incredible artist she is.
Sometimes you can't have it both ways. She is who she is.
To elaborate in this vein, and perhaps as an extension of the excellent post above fromAineteEkaterini, I got to thinking that the type of artist and person she is, for which we all appreciate, has as a likely consequence of being (in large part) remote to her fans.
Specifically, she has said on many occasions that she would have created regardless of whether or not there were any fans. You may also recall that she was surprised early on that anyone would want to listen to her music, that she created it for herself, to satisfy her own curiosities. And unlike the vast majority of pop/rock musicians, she is entirely consumed with process and creativity with little to no regard for sales and careerism and achieving or maintaining popularity. If this were not the case, her career would have followed the much more typical path of creative redundancy.
And there has also been a seeming "hands off" relationship between her and the record company. They appear to leave her be, to do as she pleases instead of trying to push her in certain directions (i.e., "SFTC, SFTS was popular, we need you to make another album just like that Polly!", etc.). The fact that she has been able to maintain her artist integrity and independence from non-artistic considerations throughout her career is an indication of her very strong will, which is further enhanced by a strong management team (or so I've read in the past).
So for most other artists who have more interest in maintaining their popularity, more significant interaction with and consideration for their fans makes more sense. For someone like Polly who doesn't have those same priorities, it doesn't.