Adult contemporary music

Adult contemporary music, frequently abbreviated to just AC, is a type of radio format that plays mainstream and pop music, without hip-hop or rap since, as per the name, it is geared more towards adults than teens. AC is generally divided into 2 groups; "Hot AC", also known as "Adult Top 40" or "Adult Alternative", and "Soft AC", also known as "Lite". Some radio stations play only Hot AC; some play only Soft AC, and some play both. It is not thus usually considered a specific genre of music, as it is merely an assembly of selected tracks of musicians of many different genres. On the other hand it is believed that many musicians will include a certain song on their album or release a certain single designed to "cross over" and get played on AC stations (such as Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful", Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" or Britney Spears' "Everytime", all three of which charted on the Hot and Soft AC charts).

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