the cultural middle in music acted as a counterweight, defusing the ideological tendencies of rock, R&B, country music, and other coherent genres, translating subcultural products into suburban staples. It kept any one sound from drowning out all others, accruing an enormous catalogue along the way, for the economic benefit of a few but the aesthetic benefit of a great many. If the great achievement of the decentralized popular music industry was sustaining multiple and rival formats that nourished disparate publics and could stretch globally, much owed to the record man’s eclecticism and
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