We'll kick off my top ten AOR and glam of the 90's and beyond list with a U.K. based band, appropriately enough, named Ten. And of the various bands that have existed since the 80's who fall under the whole AOR umbrella, they're definitely one of the most ambitious. This is partly due to the fact that all the music these guys do is the singular vision of Gary Hughes, a DIY prodigy of sorts who sings, produces and writes everything. Simply put, he's verrrry good at what he does. Blessed with huge pipes and a storyteller's sense of epic drama, he's an absolutely colossal frontman who came out of nowhere at the beginning of the 90's and has pushed the band into it's third decade now without slowing down regardless of what's in or out in the mainstream or underground.

Anyway, The Name Of The Rose was a set of songs put together from the same sessions as the group's self-titled debut, which had come out earlier in '96 and sold like hotcakes. And in all honesty, that album could have just as easily been here instead. The same sessions produced both albums, so they're neck and neck on the quality front. However, The Name Of The Rose takes its time a little more and flows better as a comprehensive experience. It's not a concept album per se, but an underlying dialogue about the motivations of human beings as they progress through life does pop up periodically from the muscular opening title cut and beyond.

Album time: the title cut is amazing and undoubtedly the band's signature song. It's a multilayered epic with a killer chorus and has enough grit in places to qualify it as a progressive metal exercise despite sounding like something you'd headline an arena with, and as the sound of a ticking clock winds down it segues into a neat slice of Def Leppard-lite with 'Wildest Dreams'. Nice one Gary. Now if only you had a one-armed drummer to complete the picture.


All in all, the whole record is pretty unusual for 1996, and as far as "progressing" AOR past the 80's went, this album did a lot of good at the time. There's just so much instrumental nuance and texture throughout these tunes that the evidence of just how much effort went into crafting songs that were just a little bit more than your expected Journey retreads is obvious to the ear. Even their ballads sound like miniature symphonies, such as the 8-minute 'Through The Fire'. You could say that's a sign of a bloated album, but sometimes a little excess is what it takes to really explore your ideas. If it helps the overall atmosphere, then more power to it ya know?


So if you ever wondered what Foreigner or Whitesnake might have sounded like with a progressive rock mindset, this should go a fair ways to satisfying that curiosity. For some people its going to be a lot of fun, and for the rest of you its a nightmare beyond reason. Either way, interesting stuff and a good place to begin my list.

Blue Murder's self titled was one helluva way to kick off the 90's. Produced by none other than the mighty Bob Rock and fronted by legendary guitarist John Sykes (Tygers Of Pan Tang, Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy, and a variety of others), this was easily the best record that emerged from the last "wave" of glam bands that formed on the cusp of grunge and alternative rock's rise to power across the U.S. and beyond. Huge sound, huge songs and plenty of atmosphere and cool ideas strewn around to boot: Blue Murder weren't your typical "hair metal" outfit, and neither was the music. In fact, there's a lot of stuff here that's downright strange, from the psychedelic 'Sex Child' to the seven minute prog-tastic piledriver 'Valley Of The Kings', which actually managed to chart AND get play on MTV before they shut out anything with a G&R-ish sound permanently.

To put it mildly, this album positively SLAYS. Besides the virtuosic Sykes and his refreshingly out-of-the-box approach to the stadium glam sound, you have Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice pounding those skins so hard its like he managed to channel Bonham up out of the underworld and the quiet but efficient Tony Franklin on bass who, ironically enough, played with Jimmy Page before jumping on board with this debut. There have been stranger power trios all throughout rock and metal history since its genesis in the early 70's, but Blue Murder have a chemistry that only the best of those managed to attain. It's hard to say what drove these guys to put out something with this much vitality and power when nobody was expecting it: Sykes being pissed off about David Coverdale firing everyone from Whitesnake a few years prior might have been part of it, but considering that this particular lineup would break up within two years of this debut makes this a questionable line of reasoning. It wasn't like Tony or Carmine had anything to prove. Perhaps we'll never know...

Of the various records on this list, most of the glam ones never really tried to be anything other than straightforward, uncomplicated adherers to an established aesthetic of some kind. Blue Murder, however, is far heavier and more diverse than your typical "hair" album, and for that reason you should all be checking it out if you have even the tiniest rockin' bone in your body.

As far as new bands and artists come in the AOR and glam metal spectrum, a lot of the credit for revitalizing all that good stuff for the last decade or so goes to Frontiers Records, an Italy-based label who have made it their mission to never let the 80's die. Formed in the late 90's, they've been busy bees since their inception. They're always signing new talent all over the world, bringing classic artists under their wing for new projects (including Whitesnake, Toto, Styx and even ELO's Jeff Lynne), and generally doing a bang-up job keeping quality melodic rock coming every year.

That being said, it's only once in a blue moon that Frontiers ends up releasing something from a completely new act that qualifies as purely phenomenal. Instant classics are hard to come by, but if a label is prolific enough, they'll eventually knock one out of the park. That's what happened in 2011 with this debut album from Scandinavian "supergroup" The Magnificent, and its a tasty cut of evidence for those lobbying in favor of 80's sounding rock being relevant as we make our way through the second decade of the 21st century.

Led by the huge tenor of Michael Eriksen (singer of progressive metal band Circus Maximus), this is an interesting album that draws primarily from the mid 80's AOR camp of bands like Magnum or maybe Europe. It's got some pomp elements, big hooks that wouldn't be out of place on a power metal album, and a fairly lush production canvas that brings out the best in each song, especially big single-ready radio monsters like 'Memories', 'Bullets' or the absolutely huge 'Love's On The Line'. You can't completely escape the cheese even on a production this classy (like on the ballad 'If It Takes All Night'), but the great stuff is so good that you probably won't care even if the slightest hint of a ballad forces you to relive those days where your flat mate wouldn't stop spinning Great White and Poison on his car's cassette player. Over and over and over again. But I digress...

Anyway, listen below and see what you think. There are only a few "new" bands on the AOR scene these days that really blow me away, and these guys are one of 'em.

...well, now you guys know where my avatar comes from. But hey, cool covers are cool covers. And when the music happens to achieve excellence too...just icing on the cake, baby. Specifically, this particular late-era release from the smoothest rock band out of late 70's L.A. marked the closest thing to a full-blown reunion of their classic lineup after nearly two decades of new people coming in and out like a revolving door (especially in light of the death of drum god Jeff Porcaro in 1992). But best of all, the first album featuring Bobby Kimball since 1982 also ended up being a killer AOR record, albeit a very eclectic and at times head-scratching journey into Toto's experimental side.

Contrary to what some of you might have picked up in trivia pursuit, Toto's name have nothing to do with the dog from The Wizard Of Oz. It's Latin for "all-encompassing", referring to the band's ability to juggle a variety of genres and styles within the realms of hard rock, funk and R&B without losing sight of the songs. But even knowing that, I'm sure nothing could have really prepared your typical listener for the sheer enthusiastic level of ecleticism that defines Mindfields. From epic sitar-led excursions The Beatles would have been proud of ('After You're Gone'), spazzed out blues rock ('High Price Of Hate') 70's-styled progressive rock ('Better World') some surprisingly good 90's sounding pop-rock ('Melanie', 'Mad About You'), and even a punchy funk number here and there ('Cruel') this was a reinvigorated Toto that was willing to swing for the fences to show people that great bands (and great music) doesn't die or become irrelevant just because you aren't a zeitgeist to the masses. Trends come and go, but those fanbases that eventually become long-term always converge and support the real talent wherever it may be.

While it is true the 90's aren't well know for having a whole lot of post-80's style classics from the former heavyweight champions, you can always count on Toto to be interesting and even vital even as others fade into pure nostalgia machines for the housewives of yesteryear. They aren't just an AOR band: they're THE band, and the evidence can be found at your local record store, an Amazon vendor, Spotify stream or Pandora station near you.