Yeah I don't think there's a reason to perpetuate what is in the article. (I also recall another study that found startup founders from broken homes were more successful? yikes? I'm also calling B.S. Freudian analysis here.)

I'm probably more happy when I'm creative and am around creative people. I'm sad when I can't be creative and don't have those outlets.

If you are having trouble with things, there are ways to get a bit better. Talk to someone, look into mindfulness about accepting current things more and worrying less about the future (this is pretty great really), etc. And in some cases you can take actions to make sure you're in a better situation.

I get a lot of good ideas from being around other people. Yes, you do need time to implement them, but having a good feedback loop if you are externally motivated is also a useful thing.

I think it's ok to want to fix the "being unhappy" part, and you can also be creative along the way. We definitely don't want to perpetuate the idea that we have to stay unhappy to be productive. Though this isn't always easy and a lot of people are dealt really hard hands.

There are some good examples of some incredibly unhappy people that were absolute geniuses (Van Gogh!) and also a lot of people that great creative geniuses that aren't as tortured. These things are orthogonal. But there are signs there's a lot of good things going on even when there are a lot of bad things also going on.

Not to say you can't find some good things about being sad about something. Developing empathy and caring about things is a pretty powerful asset. This can cause people to want to do more positive things for the world, knowing what it can feel like for them.

Or the monetary explanation; they were sad when they had financial difficulties, needed money, so wrote more compositions.

"Negative emotions appeared when they fell on hard times financially, when their health became poor or especially when a close relative died."