Someone mentioned AOR over on another thread, and it set me thinking. Adult oriented rock, eh? Polite 70s rock music designed not to frighten the horses. And it’s practitioners? If adult then, given many still stagger on, surely it needs a revamp? So, (quiet) drum roll, all hail EOR, elderly oriented rock. (Yes, that means us, or many of us!)
So post us up yer besties. (I feel somehow that @niallb may have an investment here………)
AOR
by 117 Comments
Curses! I’m at work ffs.
I’ll post this because Eager Edgar has made it topical. Much more tomorrow…….
I fear Christopher Cross and his “bloke-coming-in-and-out-of-a-tunnel” voice may soon appear.
PS. Funny thing – I remember CC’s voice vividly but not his actual songs.
“it is the night, my body’s weak
I’ve got the runs, can’t even speak”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNOn6enPC7U
Somewhat inexplicably covered by Saxon in 1988, just when they were beginning to lose the plot.
Making a bid for those Whitesnake/Def Leppard dollars. It wasn’t t’be.
This is AOR (I won’t hear any arguments) and a favourite album. I love it when ‘freaky/outsider’ artists go ‘straight’ (and vice versa)
Clear Spot and Spotlight Kid were really pretty accessible after the here-be-dragons run of Mirror Man/Trout Mask/Decals. Very touching that Don thought he could possibly become a pop star.
I’d love Radiohead to do a pop album, even if it was Big Express/Wasp Star-style XTC. Lloyd Cole has just done an 80s pop album, and he was actually around in the 80s. Good lad!
‘Too Much Time’ is one of the greatest songs ever committed to vinyl.
I used to love Working Week’s version of Too Much Time.
I was going to post a YouTube link but I had a listen and it just sound weedy. Really insipid. I didn’t know if it’s a rubbish transfer to YouTube. I’d have to dig my copy out and check to see if it is a case that my memory has been overly kind or someone did a bad upload. I hope it’s the latter.
Here’s a real challenge for you all. I strongly suggest you place all sharp objects out of reach before beginning.
Try listening to this, all 4.15 of it, without losing the will to live before the end.
Sorry, the photograph was enough of a deterrent. I must have hibernated through the year when that was taken. I can’t have lived through that – I’d have remembered.
I managed 38 seconds.
I saw this in updates and thought… nice going, feller.
Argh! Unsee! Unhear!
Yep that is pretty dire.
Every few months I get an itch that needs scratching so I have a splurge on AOR. The trusty pod shuffled up with “More than a feeling” this morning coincedentally….its just a tremendously joyful song. Also listened to “Don’t fear the Reaper.” I guess that’s AOR too but with a bit of an edge.
Post more classics folks!
*Rubs hands*
Right. The best AOR voice there is.
No argument from me and amazingly after a very long time he released new music last year. Possibly heavier on the ballads than some would have wished I found it to be a real grower. Anyway here’s probably the most AOR / Journeyesque song from it ( ignore the visuals).
Good album, isn’t it?
Yes in aproper old school listen to it all the way through way. All the better for my having no idea it was even in the offing it just seemed to arrive overnight. Yet to wear my SP socks though.
Adult Orientated Rock?
Album Orientated Rock?
American Orientated Rock?
Any Other Rock?
What’s the official dentition … and does anyone really care
Any Old Rubbish, based on most of the material posted here!
This ticks the AOR box me thinks:
Asia – Heat Of The Moment
Great choice and ticks both the AOR and the Prog boxes.
I could have picked 100 tracks by Toto but I’ll go for this later one. Lukather’s most restrained guitar solo.
I think you are being a bit hard on Eeyore ( that is how we’d say IOR in Sweden).
It is possible to grow old gracefully and with dignity.
David Byrne is a prime example. As interesting as he ever was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyJNJOyO5Hs
Patti Smith, Aimee Mann, Jackie Leven, The Magnetic Fields, Lloyd Cole and Richard Thompson also spring to mind.
But I suppose none of fhose are åarticularly good examples of Eeyore. except perhaps Stephen Merritt who is a real curmudgeon.
Morrissey is very Eeyore.
(Unnecessary HMHB incursion)
Evertyhing’s AOR
So glad someone beat me to it.
Mary oh Mary
Quite ordinary
Tell me how does your CD collection grow
With Sade and Whitney
Vandross and T’Pau
Everything’s AOR
Awesome.
I thinks Cheap Trick may fit the AOR bill too
Surrender
Box ticked
But not as good a version as on the (yellow vinyl) Budokan album. Of course. Sniff.
And The Cars
Just What I Needed
Great song.
Really not sure that ticks any of the AOR boxes. Different league to anything before it in the thread, Shirley?
Boz Scaggs?
It has half of Toto on it, so box ticked.
Sacrilege/blasphemy/heresy or whatever. Boz is NOT AOR, Toto members present or not.
Yup, NOT AOR
https://youtu.be/qHDy_b33cCQ
None more mid-80s AOR
Rick Springfield – Jessie’s Girl
Ugly bastard, isn’t he? Still touring and this was a great radio song.
With the rare – perhaps only – use of the word “moot” in a popular song.
AOR = Australian Oriented Rock
Jimmy Barnes – Working Class Man
(featuring Jonathan Cain from Journey and Kim Carnes)
This song unwittingly implies that there are other types of men in Australia.
I say, how frightfully quaint.
Trevor Rabin’s “Wolf” album is an AOR classic.
Released prior to joining Yes in the early 1980s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb59hRuBPTw
Aldo Nova also released a great AOR debut album in 1981.
A couple of top tunes here, albeit with awful early 1980s videos.
Great choice.
Consummate piece of music, if a bit sickly…..
It’s the general sickliness of that kind of AOR that repels me.
Whiny mawkish songs performed by wimpish men with ludicrous hair.
A faint whiff of manure about it.
Come on then. The best last 1min 10secs of any record ever made.
I’m gonna level with you guys… we’ve all known each other long enough now…
I. Fucken. Love. This.
“We gazed in wonder…”
I actually quite like(d) that album.
Haven’t listened to it for about 10 years though
So did a lot of people, clearly. Notwithstanding subsequent denials.
Yes, sales of 11 million copies. Incredible.
And it had those tracks where Frampton stuck a funny plastic tube in his mouth, which was connected to the guitar and sort of … controlled the sound that came out. Bizarre.
Nowt wrong with that. Frampton is a serious player and he just rode the wave of this album. Good for him.
Keep on Believing by Grand Prix is great British AOR…it even made 1 week at No.75 in the charts. At the time this was the lowest level of chart recognition you could achieve!
Again a shit sexist video from the time!
I had this on 7″. Great song.
Their Samurai album was top notch AOR/melodic rock, Blew Iron Maiden off stage on the Peace of Mind tour. At the Ipswich Gaumont at least.
Quarterflash ‘Harden My Heart’ is another early 1980s classic.
I clearly listened to too much obscure AOR at the time!
Yup, box ticked.
That’s a properly bonkers video, shades of the later “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in there. Great song though.
Surely this…
It was a staple of the AOR stations in the US, along with Skateaway from the same album.
I saw Heart in the late 80s. Maybe I’ll dig out the Bad Animals album. Or not.
Great song.
This was the first track I heard by them in the early 80s but didn’t make the connection
Heart are always excellent.
It is interesting to see some of the inclusions here. Whilst Dire Straits R&J is a well constructed piece of grown up music, it somehow isn’t AOR in the way that Foreigner, Boston, Toto etc are. Yes, crap hair, but the wrong crap hair and, again, crap video, but the wrong sort of crap video. AOR cries out for flowing and immaculately coiffed locks, preferably in a wind tunnel, whilst the artist emotes in satin clothes.
Yes. I’m struggling to understand the question. When I was younger, Little Feat and Steely Dan made grown up music for grown ups but do they count as AOR? I think, maybe, there has to be some MOR in it and it has to be eighties and smooth plus hair, as you point out.
Should be soft and smooth like Andrex. Nothing to cause discomfort and irritation. Suitable for use on board your yacht that doesn’t really go anywhere. Steely Dan is deceptive though, seems pleasant but has an underlying spikiness that can disturb. AOR began mid to late seventies I would say.
I have always loved this from late 77.
Was going to post that one @Jackthebiscuit. Great song.
And, after The Babys, John Waite wrote this and married Alison Krauss.
Bastard.
Japanese 1980s AOR or “City Pop” is currently trendy: Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love” became a YouTube re-discovery. But Minako Yoshida’s “Midnight Driver” (1980) is better
Produced by Toto’s Steve Lukather.
Great song that @niallb
I’ll just see you around.
So evocative of American radio in the seventies. This was everywhere.
Lou Gramm (Foreigner) had this hit in the States. It’s a belting radio song./
Belter! Top shout.
The Voice had a solo hit with this. It is from a terrific album, packed with amazing musicians and great songs. At least the video has a sense of humour.
No AOR list would be complete without this gem.
Great record from 81
Good shout.
And of course, the AOR Supergroup, with half of Journey and serial offender, John Waite. 5 Top Ten singles off the one album. Kerching.
These two always go together.
Mr Mr anyone?
No their biggest hit but their best song.
This is Jefferson Starship’s best song:
Richard Marx. Backing singer on Lionel Richie hits, produced by Steve Lukather and songwriter to the stars. He’s also the sweariest bloke on Twitter.
AOR heaven.
Perfect.
AOR at it’s finest IMHO.
There appears to be a heck of an overlap between “AOR” and “late 80s “soft” rock” from bands who should have known better (Heart, Journey, Foreigner etc). Fair point…
Heart’s “best” is surely this, although they do seem to be having much more fun on a double decker bus in London than most. Big hair, leather hats at a jaunty angle, lace, basques, thigh-length boots, flames, gold bars, must be 1989 or so? That Ann Wilson had/has some pipes though.
but any chance to post this AOR/power ballad supergroup thing.
Ted Nugent probably divides opinion a bit, but High Enough is an absolute joy – great shout. Some years back there was an infomercial on one of the cable channels for Time Life’s “Ultimate Rock Ballads” presented funnily enough by Kevin Cronin off REO Speedwagon. That was basically 6 or so CDs of this sort of thing.
This wasn’t on it, but I think it counts:
Sammy Hagar-era VH is packed with great anthems.
My fave?
This. Ace video too.
Good call bobness I know that Damn Yankees possibly stretch this away from AOR and into melodic rock territory (but that’s just splitting hairs isn’t it). Anyway their debut album was packed with tunes.
There was a compilation out in the 80s called “American Heartbeat” which was 100% AOR. It included this classic from Kansas, far better here in the single edit. The longer version just repeats everything a little too often.
Oh no, the longer the better. But you’re right, it’s a classic.
This too (warning: mullets).
Mullets on an AOR thread? Surely not.
Loverboy – Turn Me Loose
More Australian tinged AOR (although veering to the Soft Rock market)
Air Supply – All Out Of Love
Another Aussie – mentioned in despatches as a replacement for Bon Scott in AC/DC
(and yes, still on the Soft Rock side of AOR)
John Paul Young – Love Is In The Air
Great call, excellent record.
A thought – does this count?
Fabs-infused AOR (before AOR existed)
Badfinger – No Matter What
Possibly not but it’s a belting song. The band I was in, in ’74, used to play this and I loved playing drums on it.
Another from me.
I remember Johnny Walker playing this a lot 75/76 time.
Great song.
Jings, what a slew of responses, @niallb coming up trumps as anticipated, but it seems really to have lit up @jackthebiscuit ‘s garibaldi too! Mind you, all this smooth stuff has me in the mood for something a bit different, wondering what the polar opposite might be. Probably a whole heap o’ c&w tekno….
Difficult Listening as a genre. I think we’ve been there before! Break out the Einsturzende Neubauten!
Here is one that’s not played much, from a group that never quite made it.
As an avid Popmaster listener, there are a few on here that often come either between rounds or afterwards – at a music quiz I took part in recently, there was actually a round of “Records that Ken Bruce plays after Popmaster” which was fantastic.
How about Satellite by the Hooters? Didn’t know this till a university mate played it to me some time in the late 90s – great stuff.
I do miss Lynne Bowles. Mainly because when Ken plays Forever Autumn after Popmaster, I have to chuckle all to myself about “the horses’ bits were covered in foam”.
Much much love for the Hooters here. Have seen them in Germany 3 times in the last few years. A wonderful noise.
It’s over exposed by TV theme usage but this is a masterpiece. John Peel’s review said when Dickie Betts comes back in after the piano solo it makes you toes curl up, round and clean through your feet.
I’m surprised no-one has given a shout out to “Ray Donovan” latest series Episode 1 – Terry Donovan going thru a Tea Party Liver Cleansing Psych wig out to Boston playing “Foreplay” – interesting instrumental start – I never heard before – not really a AOR fan – but then again like some early Rush tunes.