Abstract
As the preeminent musical invention of the twentieth century, the synthesizer has become a ubiquitous device that not only informs the soundscapes of our lives, but one that also shapes what we consider to be music. At the heart of this unquestioned, though often polarizing, marketplace icon is a paradox between the synthesizer's limitless power of sound design that appeals to musicians and the limiting power of culture that circumscribes the instrument's potential in order to make it appealing to mass consumers. To understand how the synthesizer became a marketplace icon, we examine it in relation to the synthetic nature of icons (i.e. the dialectical tension at the heart of icons), the web of iconicity (i.e. the cultural associations necessary to elevate a product to iconic status), and the process of cultural appropriation of disruptive innovations (i.e. the necessity to tame, but seemingly promote, the iconoclastic nature of marketplace icons).