Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music

by Eric Weisbard

Yet postindustrial trends after the early 1970s worked to widen wealth gaps. Neoliberalism, the notion that privatization unleashed productivity, favored yuppie and New Economy ideals of personalized consumption.29 Here, one shopped to become different, not to validate a mass or group identity. Already divided against itself by genre/format and rock/pop dualities, the system of radio and records that peaked in the 1970s came under siege from these trends—advertiser insistence on reaching affluent buyers in the 25–54 category clashed with much of the pop music core audience. Top 40 itself, the mass-appeal approach of playing the widest variety of hits, was especially challenged, with stations abandoning the format at the onset of the 1980s and even more decisively in the early 1990s, but similar concerns faced black-oriented stations leery of playing hip-hop and rock stations whose heavy metal offerings were seen as blue collar in appeal.