It's as much of a gimmick as piss and moaning about a poor childhood is in new metal, drugs and thugs is in rap, mama in jail and the broken down truck is in country. There's always a few that veer from the typical, like Opeth, I don't know the meanings, but they don't sing about cannibalism and sexual exhumations. Eminem, I guess, doesn't rap like othe rappers. There's always a few, but for the most part there's something that works in every genre. If that's the case then music as a whole is one big gimmick. I'm not arguing your point I'm just pointing out that it applies to everything so if one mentions a "gimmick" in one genre then they should be mentioning all gimmicks in all genres. The blues isn't really the blues without, well, the blues. Nor is any other genre without their main drive. And I guess just to mark the ball being tossed back into your court "C'mon man".