Atlantic played a major role in popularizing the new genre that Jerry Wexler dubbed rhythm & blues and it profited handsomely from this. The market for these records exploded during late 1953 and early 1954, as more and more R&B hits crossed over to the mainstream (i.e. white) audience. In its tenth anniversary feature on Atlantic, Billboard noted that previously, "... a very big r&b record might achieve 250,000 sales, but from this point on (1953–54), the industry began to see million sellers, one after the other, in the r&b field".[27] It observed that the label's "fresh sound" and the quality of its recordings, arrangements and musicians was a great advance on what was the standard for R&B records at the time, and that for the past five years Atlantic had "dominated the rhythm and blues chart with its roster of powerhouse artists".