Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music

by Eric Weisbard

A&M Records exemplifies two related and undervalued vantage points for pop music in the rock era: business leaders who produced hits and the middle of the road (MOR) or by 1980 adult contemporary (AC) radio success of many big sellers. MOR/AC, like Top 40, was a crossover format, drawing from multiple genres. Where Top 40 allied with rock and roll and youth culture, MOR/AC profitably catered to older suburban listeners. MOR listeners and record sellers, in the cultural tumult of the 1960s and 1970s, were not the baby boom children of Top 40 and rock—Alpert and Moss were each born in 1935. Still, they craved youthfulness, California, and consumer fun. A yard at a time, opting for hits designed to be “easily understood,” middle of the roaders validated music’s restructuring of American mores. They sometimes even led the way.