Its clear where Glee went wrong, when you compare it to Empire. They're both fresh, original ideas but MurphT ended up putting the music first over the actual development of the show.
He was thinking 'hmm what songs would be great to top iTunes' rather than 'lets develop the plot, premise first then include the songs. Like the Madonna episode felt so contrived.
Which is where Empire can hopefully not fall into the trap. The music so far has been popular, but not the #majah catalyst for the show. Thus, it allows the plot and character development to take centre stage with the music an added bonus.
Plus the fact its full of black people and we all know how much Middle America wanna be #different so much
I would have thought the pretentiousness or boring lyrics would have alienated the public and said nope to the song, but it's the opposite. 
