I don't think I can call anyone who's well known enough to be on the radio outside of mainstream.. I mean, she doesn't sound like hip hop or like pop music today that's for sure.. between something like Meghan Trainor and Lana Del Rey, I'd give the artism and depth to del Rey all day... but she IS mainstream. The same way I feel Tool is... still popular enough that people know who they are, but not really being overplayed on the radio either (besides the summertime sadness remix).
... But I don't really get the whole Goddess representation thing for Eck's reasons entirely. She's a singer. She's a talented one, not the most talented one I've heard, but she does have talent and does what she does well.. but a goddess? Nope. No no no. She's very pretty, and she does have a particular style... but I don't know if that puts her in any form of godliness.
I find some of her songs haunting and lovely, and others really... boring and repetitive. Summertime Sadness and Ride I liked.. but Bad Disease and.. whatever else the other one was about $100 bills was pretty boring to me honestly.
She comes across as pretentious at times, but most art does. It isn't annoying enough to overshadow her songs. She does have songs in a variety of characters, and I would even venture to say she is representing characters in these songs that are outside of mainstream women.. Ride is a good example of that to me. Doing it on purpose? I'd hope so, since she's writing these songs and characters herself. But is she truly what I would think of for representation of non main stream women? Nah.
And at the end of the day, she is a slave to how she looks like most other women are, as evidenced by the fact she still uses make up appropriately, got her face touched up, goes out of her way to look good for music videos, etc. etc. I don't dislike her for that.. most people really are slaves to their looks, particularly when they're already born good looking. But it puts her in perspective too.
I'm obviously not a big fan of her work, though I think she's a good singer and like a few of her songs here and there and I even think her style is pretty neat at times. I don't see why people obsess over her, but then again I don't expect people to understand the things I obsess over either.