Faced with these dilemmas,companies strategically establish a series of aesthetic and commercial hierarchies. Potentially commercial music is ordered and certain categories of music are prioritized over others.During my research in Britain (Nagus,1992) I found this to be apparent in the way in which white,male,guitar-dominated rock band were being prioritized as long-term commercial propositions and accorded considerable inverstment. In comtrast, soul and dance music was being treated in a less strategic and more ad hoc manner. As these priorities were established, a naturalistic 'organic' set of creative practices were accorded a privileged position over more 'synthetic' combinatorial approaches to popular music. These creative practices were then inscribed into the commercial priorities of the record companies, so that rock was prioritized over soul, albums over singles,and the self-contained 'live' guitar band over the loosely strucred 'studio' keyboard groups.