This dissertation reinterprets what has often been viewed, musically and mythically, as the “rock era,” contrasting that cultural formation with other musical styles, other performers, and other audiences. I will argue that the rock rebellion embraced by the counterculture was only one aspect of pop music, whose commercialized pluralism provided a range of distinctly accented engagements with America's postwar transformation into what historian Lizabeth Cohen has called a "consumers' republic." In music, the segmentation that Cohen and others have chronicled was apparent in radio, where a format system emerged that targeted different demographics. The chapters that follow use figures long identified with these formats to see an era of cultural and social upheaval from multiple perspectives. The Isley Brothers, a northern rhythm and blues (R&B) group, exemplify how a format rooted in African American expression developed against the appropriation of that heritage and the fissures of the post-civil rights era. Dolly Parton, a southern country singer, balanced her traditional upbringing with a passion for modernity, much like the region and genre she came to symbolize. A&M Records was built on middle of the road (MOR) hits, from co-founder Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass in the 1960s to the Carpenters in the 1970s; the California label showcased the plasticity of both the music industry and suburban taste. Finally, Elton John's thirty-year run as an Englishman and gay man thriving in the US Top 40 speaks to a format of outsiders opting in, and to how Americanization became globalization. As even these brief descriptions hint, juxtaposing the formats of postwar American pop conjures a much more inclusive sense of the music's reach and resonance.