ABSTRACT
By 1945 the basic structure of the modern music industry was in place. Pop music [short for “popular music”] meant pop records, commodities, [and] a technological and commercial process under the control of a small number of larger companies. Such control depended on the ownership of the means of record production and distribution and was organized around the marketing of stars and star performances (just as the music publishing business had been organized around the manufacture and distribution of songs). Live music making was still important but its organization and profits were increasingly dependent on the exigencies of record making. The most important way of publicizing pop now-the way most people heard most music-was on the radio, and records were made with radio formats and radio audiences in mind.
