RIO: Rock In Opposition

AOR: Album Oriented Rock

...sometimes i've heard of people saying "Adult Oriented Rock"

RIO = Rock In Opposition. A term coined by Henry Cow.

AOR = Album Oriented Rock, or Adult oriented Rock. FM-radio rock of the 70s.

Hopefully someone will give you a more thooroughful explanation.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is a wonderful resource

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album_Oriented_Rock - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album_Oriented_Rock

Album-oriented rock, abbreviated AOR and originally called Album-oriented radio, was originally an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock artists.

Similar to the origin of the progressive rock radio format, album-oriented rock took advantage of the new availability of stations on the FM spectrum in the 1960s and the growth of albums as opposed to singles as rock's main artistic vehicle for expression in the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed in many places the AOR format was a conservative evolution of the progressive rock format.

• AC/DC
• Aerosmith
• The Allman Brothers Band
• Blind Faith
• The Beatles
• Black Sabbath
• Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
• Boston
• The Cars
• Cream
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Crosby Stills and Nash
• Def Leppard
• Dire Straits
• The Doors
• Eagles
• Electric Light Orchestra
• Emerson, Lake and Palmer
• Family
• Foreigner
• Heart
• Jethro Tull
• Journey
• Kansas
• King Crimson
• Led Zeppelin
• Lynyrd Skynyrd
• Steve Miller Band
• The Moody Blues
• Mountain
• Mr. Mister
• The Nice
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• Pink Floyd
• Place Vendome
• The Police
• Queen
• REO Speedwagon
• The Rolling Stones
• Rush
• Styx
• Survivor
• Talking Heads
• Toto
• Van Halen
• The Who
• Yes
• ZZ Top

Album-oriented rock went through many stylistic changes on commercial radio in North America, including the United States, throughout the 1980s to add glam metal bands such as Warrant and Poison, expanding the classic rock playlist on such stations, and adding new-wave acts such as The Alarm and The Church until Nirvana's sudden ascent with the album Nevermind in 1991.

After the aforementioned album's success, album-oriented rock drifted into several current-based hard-sounding formats. One of these was active rock (euphemism for today's mainstream album rock, and playing acts such as Stone Temple Pilots, Guns N' Roses, and Linkin Park). The active rock format was pioneered by the formerly broadcast (now internet only) KNAC-FM out of Long Beach, California in 1986 and expanded upon by WXTB-FM out of Tampa, Florida in January, 1990.

Another format spun off from AOR was Classic rock (mostly spanning the decades from the late 1960s through today, with emphasis on the earlier hits).

Since then, hundreds of such rock music radio stations have been playing both current-based Active rock and the decades-spanning Classic rock to much commercial ratings success across the United States and Canada.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, AOR began to be associated with another concept called "melodic rock" which, most simply stated, is the sound of hard rock and heavy metal bands of the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. It is seen as a throwback to those eras and a counter-reaction against the grunge, alternative, bubblegum, retro-disco, and Latin sounds of the mid-to-late 1990s. Many of these acts are bands, band members, and musicians from popular bands of the earlier eras, such as Toto, Foreigner, Van Halen, Styx and Europe, either regrouped or playing in new bands or reconfigured lineups. Several of the acts are British or European, and many albums are now recorded and produced in Europe and Japan, and are only available in the United States as imports. One of the most recent AOR releases was Place Vendome with ex-Helloween vocalist Michael Kiske joining with the members of Pink Cream 69.

Nowadays the AOR scene is held in respect by many followers, with important websites like http://www.westcoast-music.com, http://www.melodicrock.com, http://www.rockreport.be, http://www.glory-daze.com and http://www.strutter.8m.com being great sources to discover the new releases in the genre.

Firepuck wrote: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is a wonderful resource http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album_Oriented_Rock - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album_Oriented_Rock Album-oriented rock, abbreviated AOR and originally called Album-oriented radio, was originally an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock artists. Similar to the origin of the progressive rock radio format, album-oriented rock took advantage of the new availability of stations on the FM spectrum in the 1960s and the growth of albums as opposed to singles as rock's main artistic vehicle for expression in the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed in many places the AOR format was a conservative evolution of the progressive rock format. In some markets the term AOR was re-positioned as Adult-oriented rock, implying that 'adults' were more likely to buy albums rather than singles. Some notable AOR bands: AC/DC = hard-rock Aerosmith = hard-rock The Allman Brothers Band = southern rock Blind Faith = rock-blues The Beatles = pop-rpck Black Sabbath = doom rock / hard rock Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band = folk/rock blues Boston The Cars Cream = hard-blues Creedence Clearwater Revival = rock 'n' roll Crosby Stills and Nash = folk-rock/blues Def Leppard = hard-rock Dire Straits = "The Sultans Of Swing" The Doors = psychedelia Eagles = folk/blues pop/rock ? Electric Light Orchestra = pop-rock Emerson, Lake and Palmer = PROGRESSIVE ROCK!!! Family = folk/prog Foreigner Heart Jethro Tull = folk/prog Journey Kansas King Crimson = PROGRESSIVE ROCK!!! Led Zeppelin = hard-rock hard/blues Lynyrd Skynyrd = southern rock Steve Miller Band = rock-blues / psychedelia The Moody Blues = PROGRESSIVE ROCK Mountain = hard-rock blues Mr. Mister The Nice = PROGRESSIVE ROCK!!! Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers = folk rock/pop Pink Floyd = PROGRESSIVE ROCK!!! Place Vendome The Police Queen = glam rock REO Speedwagon The Rolling Stones = rock 'n' roll/psychedelia Rush = hard-prog Styx Survivor Talking Heads Toto Van Halen = hard-rock The Who = (hard) rock Yes = PROGRESSIVE ROCK!!!!!! ZZ Top = rock-blues Album-oriented rock went through many stylistic changes on commercial radio in North America, including the United States, throughout the 1980s to add glam metal bands such as Warrant and Poison, expanding the classic rock playlist on such stations, and adding new-wave acts such as The Alarm and The Church until Nirvana's sudden ascent with the album Nevermind in 1991. After the aforementioned album's success, album-oriented rock drifted into several current-based hard-sounding formats. One of these was active rock (euphemism for today's mainstream album rock, and playing acts such as Stone Temple Pilots, Guns N' Roses, and Linkin Park). The active rock format was pioneered by the formerly broadcast (now internet only) KNAC-FM out of Long Beach, California in 1986 and expanded upon by WXTB-FM out of Tampa, Florida in January, 1990. Another format spun off from AOR was Classic rock (mostly spanning the decades from the late 1960s through today, with emphasis on the earlier hits). Since then, hundreds of such rock music radio stations have been playing both current-based Active rock and the decades-spanning Classic rock to much commercial ratings success across the United States and Canada. In the mid-to-late 1990s, AOR began to be associated with another concept called "melodic rock" which, most simply stated, is the sound of hard rock and heavy metal bands of the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. It is seen as a throwback to those eras and a counter-reaction against the grunge, alternative, bubblegum, retro-disco, and Latin sounds of the mid-to-late 1990s. Many of these acts are bands, band members, and musicians from popular bands of the earlier eras, such as Toto, Foreigner, Van Halen, Styx and Europe, either regrouped or playing in new bands or reconfigured lineups. Several of the acts are British or European, and many albums are now recorded and produced in Europe and Japan, and are only available in the United States as imports. One of the most recent AOR releases was Place Vendome with ex-Helloween vocalist Michael Kiske joining with the members of Pink Cream 69. Nowadays the AOR scene is held in respect by many followers, with important websites like http://www.westcoast-music.com, http://www.melodicrock.com, http://www.rockreport.be, http://www.glory-daze.com and http://www.strutter.8m.com being great sources to discover the new releases in the genre. Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album-oriented_rock - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album-oriented_rock "

The bands in blue are (IMO) AOR, or something similar.

Firepuck wrote: The active rock format was pioneered by the formerly broadcast (now internet only) KNAC-FM out of Long Beach, California in 1986

What a great radio station that was!   They played all the long tracks of artists like ELP, Yes, Jethro Tull, they introduced me to Kansas and Rush in the mid 70's before anyone was playing them and they had a great import show once a week where I learned of such bands as PFM, Banco and Amon DÜÜL II. They also had a show on Monday nights from 8-12 that featured the music of one artist.  The guy who DJ'd that would play obscure recordings and bootlegs.  It was sad when they went to the active format and played nothing but heavy metal but as they did with prog rock format they made their reputation by playing everything but the top 40 songs.

I remember vividly in the summer of 1977 on a drive home on the freeway from work when a great dj by the name of Ronny McCoy came on said "Who'll drink a toast with me?  To the devil and the deep blue sea!  Great new lyrics form ELP" and proceed to play Pirates before the release of Works vol 1.  That was typical.

RIP KNAC

eddietrooper wrote: I think the perfect examples of AOR are Boston, Foreigner, Journey and Toto.

See now there is another meaning for the term which is Arena Orientated Rock. Bands in the late 70's and early 80's that played 10,000+ arenas or stadiums such as the bands you listed there and some Andrew had like later Kansas 79-82 and post 1980 Rush also could have been in that list as well as Van Halen.  

This Wikepedia article is highly incorrect IMHO

I have corrected that coloured list to for you to see what I consider AOR - not to be confused with MOR which is Middle-Of-The-Road , also a concept of that late 70's era. AOR was also sometimes consider as Stadium rock or even Corporate rock

Some notable AOR bands:

• The Allman Brothers Band became AOR in the late 70's 
• Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
• Boston
• The Cars >> limit AOR
• Eagles >>> AOR par excellence
• Foreigner
• Heart
• Journey
• Later Kansas
• Steve Miller Band>> certainly became AOR in the 70's
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers >>>> pure AOR
• REO Speedwagon
• Styx
• Survivor
• Toto
• Steely Dan
• Later Doobie Brothers
• later 70's Fleetwood Mac
• Ambrosia
• Alan Parsons Project
• Bread
• America
• Bruce Springsteen
• ETC..............

Lindsay Lohan wrote: Certainly there seems to be a great deal of prog bands that could also be called AOR? Like journey,kansas and such

All groups that put out albums could then be AOR, so this must be considered wisely. This is why some people consider AOR as ADULT-Oriented Rock, which I truly believe is just as correct for AOR.

Our teachers that did see 67's Summer of love in their late teens , but were not hippies were not really appreciative of Aerosmith or AC DC, but preferred Fleetwood Mac or Styx. It is the albums they bought massively >>> those are the albums coined as AOR

Styx , later (80's) Kansas, APP are side-issued prog bands but not really full blown prog

But full blown prog bands were never AOR  >>>>> AOR , for ELP, yes or genesis is ludicrous (and stupid)

RIO is everything that AOR fears.

Trouserpress wrote: RIO is everything that AOR fears.

That pretty well sums it up!!!!

Always thought Fleetwood Mac's album Rumours was one of the best selling examples of AOR - but don't see any mention so far????

Hence AOR = 'average old rock' when an album is played to death by FM radio.

The one thing I see missing from this discussion is a simple fact.

AOR FM stations were playing album cuts - not the "hit singles". We got to hear most of the album before we bought it. This was W A Y before Clear Channel & other Format-Style, strict playlist management techniques were thought of.

It was also very Anti-Establishment - at the time, anyway.