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The AOR-side of Prog
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Awesoreno View Drop Down
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Points: 3041 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Awesoreno Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 07 2024 at 02:22
They were really big and considered AOR with the likes of the bands you mentioned. As was Foreigner.
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The peak sales for that type of AOR must have been that early 80s span.

REO Speedwagon - Hi Infidelity (1980)
Styx - Paradise Theater (1981)
Foreigner - 4 (1981)
Journey - Escape (1981)
Toto - IV (1982)
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My MOR Prog  Top 12 - all of which I want more of. Smile

Asia
Barclay James Harvest
Chicago
Journey
Kansas
Manfred Mann's Earth Band
The Moody Blues
Alan Parsons Project
Procol Harum
Styx
Supertramp
Toto
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Originally posted by Prog-jester Prog-jester wrote:

never heard of them but it looks like they're the least prog out of these

Yep pretty terrible band. I can remember going round to my sister when the rules on meeting up during the pandemic were being relaxed and singing along ( i was very drunk in my defenceSmile) to one of REO's cheesy 80's hits. They were the very worst of the overproduced US radio bands. Not a creative bone in them.
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^ What? Bad words about REO Speedwagon? Go wash your mouth! Tongue

It's true that they explored their formula to the bone, but at moments it worked very well (as their popular success shows). Much of their work may be formulaic, but some of it is just very well written and arranged rock music, by moments even spectacular! I don't think it is fair to say it is bad music and a more thorough listen will show that. It is catchy, formulaic, but not necessarily bad. Some albums are quite boring (of those that I've heard) because they don't change their formula that much, but You Can Tune a Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish and Hi Infidelity are very enjoyable albums: well written (both music and lyrics) and fun to listen to (that's why you sang along!).

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Cool to see Jellyfish appreciation here. Such an incredible band- there's a good reason Brian Wilson wanted to write songs with those guys.
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Points: 1754 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote jude111 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 11 2024 at 08:25

Led Zeppelin is the right answer. While most artists were focused on singles, this was a band wholly committed to making album-oriented rock albums. I was listening to audio documentaries recently with Yes and Genesis, and it was clear that they thought Led Zeppelin were prog, and grouped them together along with others like Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd.

I was surprised to learn that Fairport Convention was a big influence on early Genesis. But it totally makes sense. And it's clear that Fairport Convention also exerted an influence on Led Zeppelin - they also sought to mine folkier elements to their music, and of course even FC's Sandy Denny guested on The Battle of Evermore.

Back in the day, you couldn't listen to AOR radio in the US without hearing a massive playing of LD on a daily basis.
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Points: 35951 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Logan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 11 2024 at 10:16
When I speak of AOR, I refer to a genre of music rather than a format per se.

Here is how RateYourMusic, which has AOR as a genre tag, defines it, and when people say AOR in North America where I exist, we do tend to think of bands like Journey, Foreigner, Boston...: See https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/aor/

Originally posted by RYM RYM wrote:

AOR, short for Adult Oriented Rock, is a sub-genre of Rock that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s as an amalgamation of Hard Rock, Pop Rock and Progressive Rock. It is characterized by a rich, layered sound, slick production and a heavy reliance on commercial melodic hooks, which led to its huge popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Adult-oriented rock is commonly conflated with but distinguished from the US "album-oriented rock" FM radio format, also called AOR, which played not only adult-oriented rock but also album tracks and "deep cuts" from a variety of other rock genres.

AOR songs are almost always electric guitar and synthesizer-driven, occasionally crossing over with other popular synth-driven genres such as Synthpop and New Wave, very often including harmonized vocals. The catchy, singalong choruses combined with relatively short song lengths and a bombastic, anthemic quality modeled after prog’s theatrical ambitions make AOR a very radio-friendly genre. The songs are typically more melodic than most straightforward hard rock, but harder edged than most pop rock, not unlike Power Pop‘s marriage of sugary harmonies and muscular, driving riffs.

Some of the earliest and most well known AOR bands include names like Asia, Boston, Foreigner, Journey, Survivor and Toto, with songs such as Boston's "More Than a Feeling" and Toto's "Africa" becoming hugely popular radio staples, the latter showcasing influences from lighter pop rock stylings more akin to Soft Rock and Yacht Rock. As many of these bands are known for their stadium-filled shows, there is a significant overlap between AOR and "arena rock", an originally pejorative term used by critics to describe bands known for their crowd-pleasing anthems and power ballads. However, arena rock is not an AOR-exclusive term as many acts pegged as arena rock such as the Post-Punk rooted U2 come from many different backgrounds of rock music beyond AOR.

Although AOR experienced a decline in popularity in part due to the breakthrough of Alternative Rock in the 1990s, the genre eventually went through an underground resurgence in the 2000s with acts such as Brother Firetribe and Place Vendome reviving AOR’s pompous, arena-sized rock for the modern day.
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Points: 3041 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Awesoreno Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 11 2024 at 23:15
Yeah, I'm getting the sense that many are thinking of "album-oriented rock." The topic is, as elucidated above, "adult-oriented rock." 
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Originally posted by Awesoreno Awesoreno wrote:

Yeah, I'm getting the sense that many are thinking of "album-oriented rock." The topic is, as elucidated above, "adult-oriented rock." 

I never heard of "adult-oriented rock."  Would that be, well, Kenny G, or Yanni, or.....?  

You know, "Cougar Music." 
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Originally posted by Awesoreno Awesoreno wrote:

Yeah, I'm getting the sense that many are thinking of "album-oriented rock." The topic is, as elucidated above, "adult-oriented rock." 


I had AOR as the type of music described as "adult-oriented rock" but at the same time, the acronym = album-oriented rock.
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by Awesoreno Awesoreno wrote:

Yeah, I'm getting the sense that many are thinking of "album-oriented rock." The topic is, as elucidated above, "adult-oriented rock." 

I never heard of "adult-oriented rock."  Would that be, well, Kenny G, or Yanni, or.....?  

You know, "Cougar Music." 
In the mid-to-late 1970s in the UK and on the continent, the term 'adult-oriented rock' referred to a subgenre that actually has nothing to do with the meaning of 'album-oriented rock' as a U.S. term. The 'adult-oriented rock' subgenre was often associated with bands and solo artists that produced music aimed at an audience that was once a typical rock audience but had already matured, in the sense that they already had jobs and had already started families, so the music typically featured polished production, accessible melodies, and lyrics that, so believed, resonated with those supposed older listeners. Records that belonged to this subgenre were albums like "Red Octopus" by Jefferson Starship (1975), "How Dare You!" by 10cc (1976), "The Stranger" by Billy Joel (1977), "Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac (1977), "Breakfast in America" by Supertramp (1979), and so on.
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by Awesoreno Awesoreno wrote:

Yeah, I'm getting the sense that many are thinking of "album-oriented rock." The topic is, as elucidated above, "adult-oriented rock." 

I never heard of "adult-oriented rock."  Would that be, well, Kenny G, or Yanni, or.....?  

You know, "Cougar Music." 
Interestingly, I don't believe anyone has mentioned John "Cougar" Mellencamp. I'd say he that he was a part of the AOR scene to an extent back in the 80's. 
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Points: 6442 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote mathman0806 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 12 2024 at 11:36
I was in high school in California in the early 80's and Sammy Hagar was a big AOR (album oriented radio) staple. I remember a classmate explaining that John Cougar is the "Midwest Sammy Hagar."
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Originally posted by mathman0806 mathman0806 wrote:

I was in high school in California in the early 80's and Sammy Hagar was a big AOR (album oriented radio) staple. I remember a classmate explaining that John Cougar is the "Midwest Sammy Hagar."


That "classmate" was on some stuff.
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Originally posted by verslibre verslibre wrote:

Originally posted by mathman0806 mathman0806 wrote:

I was in high school in California in the early 80's and Sammy Hagar was a big AOR (album oriented radio) staple. I remember a classmate explaining that John Cougar is the "Midwest Sammy Hagar."


That "classmate" was on some stuff.


It ain’t called “high” school for nothing. 😏
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Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:

Originally posted by Awesoreno Awesoreno wrote:

Yeah, I'm getting the sense that many are thinking of "album-oriented rock." The topic is, as elucidated above, "adult-oriented rock." 

I never heard of "adult-oriented rock."  Would that be, well, Kenny G, or Yanni, or.....?  

You know, "Cougar Music." 
Never heard AOR in relation to "Adult-Oriented Rock" either. My entire life AOR was "Album-Oriented Rock."
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Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys is one of the best albums you will ever listen to.
The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"
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Originally posted by verslibre verslibre wrote:

Originally posted by mathman0806 mathman0806 wrote:

I was in high school in California in the early 80's and Sammy Hagar was a big AOR (album oriented radio) staple. I remember a classmate explaining that John Cougar is the "Midwest Sammy Hagar."


That "classmate" was on some stuff.


Yeah. I think he was. I was a sophomore and he was a senior in the same math class. He was a DJ at our high school radio station. Played mostly metal. An early supporter of Motley Crüe.
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From the all-knowing Wikipedia: 

Album-oriented rock (AOR, originally called album-oriented radio) is an FM radio format created in the United States in the late 1960s that focuses on the full repertoire of rock albums and is currently associated with classic rock.[1][2]

US radio stations dedicated to playing album tracks by rock artists from the hard rock and progressive rock genres initially established album-oriented radio. In the mid-1970s, AOR was characterized by a layered, mellifluous sound and sophisticated production with considerable dependence on melodic hooks. The AOR format achieved tremendous popularity in the late 1960s to the early 1980s through research and formal programming to create an album rock format with great commercial appeal.

From the early 1980s onward, the abbreviation AOR transitioned from "album-oriented radio" to "album-oriented rock", meaning radio stations specialized in classic rock recorded during the late 1960s and 1970s.[3]

The term is also commonly conflated with "adult-oriented rock", a radio format that also uses the initialism "AOR" and covers not only album-oriented rock but also album tracks and "deep cuts" from a range of other rock genres, such as soft rock and pop rock.

(...somehow, mixing the terms "adult" and "rock" seems somewhat incongruous!)



Edited by cstack3 - May 12 2024 at 20:40
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