"Adult Contemporary", now there's a dirty word to a lot of people. Adult Contemporary is a radio format aimed at people aged 25-54. According to KCDZ-FM, the target audience is "super consumers, spending and consuming more than any other group! Nearly 75% are married and nearly 80% have at least one child. These are family people!" I suppose that translates to soccer mom to many noders.
Yahoo! Radio calls it, "The music you've grown up with, along with today's smoother hits. Nothing too hard, but nothing too mellow."
Radio Crow splits it into 4 categories: Hot, being "Top 40 without any hip-hop or teen music"; Latino, "Latin-flavored hit and dance music"; Soft, "Soft hits and romantic ballads"; and Urban, "Romantic ballads and softer Urban hits minus Hip Hop and teen music".
There is also Adult Contemporary Christian Music.
A typical Adult Contemporary playlist can thus be a little diverse. Here's an example from DJUSA:
Now let's see here. Tony Bennett, Stevie Wonder, and Vince Guaraldi are three very fine musicians whose work has been around long enough to make a dent in most people's heads. Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand get shoved down people's throats enough to be recognized but are laid-back enough (usually) to not bother anyone. Natalie Merchant and Everything But The Girl are not exactly established, but their music is pretty soothing, I guess.
The "super consumer" bit betrays some true intentions. Don't you think so?
for Lord Brawl
Sources
http://radio.yahoo.com/radio/embedded/music/rock_and_pop/adult_contemporary
http://www.radiocrow.com/news_docs/format_definitions.htm
http://www.djusa.com/playlist_ac.html
http://www.salemmusicnetwork.com
http://www.kcdzfm.com/Demographics/demographics.html