WMMS had to break new music outside the elites; it had to deploy Top 40 devices, from DJ banter to station IDs, but with a sardonic and knowing belligerence. There would be room for “peripheral styles,” from reggae to Abba, so long as there was no question about the station’s unifying commitment to a white, guitar-driven, rock attitude. The “hotly produced,” hyperbolically maintained sound was the thread now, where previously, as Sanders has said, countercultural allegiances connected much more varied programming.
