The use of commercial sponsorship for the large-scale tours and concerts of the 1970s, a practice that continues, has caused the music to pick up the pejorative label of being "corporate rock". Writer Chris Smith argued that the style dehumanized listeners, setting them up as passive recipients rather than allowing them to truly engage with musicians, and additionally put different bands in a position akin to homogenized products. It has also been regarded as essentially malign capitalist propaganda. The distance between taste-makers' judgment of certain groups as "uncool" and their mass audience appeal had existed since the style's origins after the ending of the 1960s, and a wide variety of other dismissive terms have been used such as "dad rock". Deliberately playing against criticism and claiming to represent the people against the elite has been used in musical marketing. The association of arena rock with the so-called "yuppies" and their conspicuous consumption additionally has tied the style with a group often maligned in the media, subject to mocking caricatures and other kinds of ridicule. However, as pointed out by historian Gary A. Donaldson, the music eclipsed the waning genre of disco and related bands successfully toured across the world.
The use of commercial sponsorship for the large-scale tours and concerts of the 1970s a practice that continues, has caused the music to pick up the pejorative label of being "corporate rock". Writer Chris Smith argued that the style dehumanized listeners, setting them up as passive recipients rather than allowing them to truly engage with musicians, and additionally put dif,ferent bands in a position akin to homogenized products. It has also been regarded as essentially malign capitalist propaganda. The distance between taste-makers' judgment of certain groups as "uncool" and their mass audience appeal had existed since the style's origins after the ending of the 1960s, and a wide variety of other dismissive terms have been used such as "dad rock". Deliberately playing against criticism and claiming to represent the people against the elite has been used in musical marketing. The association of arena rock with the so-called "yuppies" and their conspicuous consumption additionally has tied the style with a group often maligned in the media, subject to mocking caricatures and other kinds of ridicule. However, as pointed out by historian Gary A. Donaldson, the music eclipsed the waning genre of disco and related bands successfully toured across the world.