About: In the late sixties, as if the result of some galactic explosion, the popular idiom splintered and broke into so many components that a microscopic analysis of each is a difficult if not Herculean task. The cause of this diffusion can be traced to several sources. One was the rapid acceleration and increasing listenership to FM radio, whose alternative programming deviated from hard-rock to progressive country & western, from album cuts to singles, from lush strings to neo-jazz, and away from banal top-forty disc jockeys towards mellowed diplomats who were more influenced by orchestration than sensation.       Sponge   NotDistinct   Permalink