AOR: The Journal
 

AOR, also known as melodic rock, arena rock, or "adult-oriented rock". It is also related to the radio format, album-oriented rock. Whatever you call it, AOR is the sound of many things: blasting down the freeway into an open city at 1:45 in the morning when the world is half asleep, hot chicks hanging around on the hood of your car..hell, the sound of fun itself. Like any style of real distinction, it has merits and signatures: huge choruses, over the top guitar-led harmonies, and production slicker than what most people are used to even in commercial metal. It was the face of rock n' roll that was made to rule arenas, and aspects of AOR would later get incorporated into so called "hair" or glam metal of the mid to late 80's. Hell, even bands and artists not normally associated with that stuff would dabble in AOR throughout the late 70's and the genre's prime years in the following decade. If you lived back then, it was pretty much impossible to get away from it. But really....why would you ever want to? :pimp:

While the genre's commercial relevance fizzled out to pretty much nothing by 1992 or so as alternative/grunge stuff became in vogue, new bands and artists (as well as older ones) continue to keep the flame alive and produce new music in the style, especially throughout Scandinavia and other parts of Europe in general.

This thread will be co-authored by myself and Unknown Soldier, much like the Toto thread. As most of you have guessed by now, he and I really like a lot of the melodic rock that came out of the U.S. during the prime years of AOR radio, so this thread will be focusing on that period all the way to the "end" in the early 90's.

Some of these artists you will know, some you won't. You may like or even hate some of the albums featured here, but that just comes with the territory when a genre isn't popular. When all is said and done though, hopefully you'll all have some insight into the better works of the many talented AOR bands and artists of a bygone era.

So strap in, put on your cheesiest sunglasses, and enjoy your journey into the world of 80's AOR...an era that never "really" died and probably never will. :finger:

~ Anteater & Unknown Soldier

Ah, cool! I know I'm gonna enjoy reading this. Settling back... :cool:

I thought it was Album Oriented Rock.

Hmmm.

So what will the parameters of the journal be? Very simple and that is the best 10 AOR albums each year from 1975 to somewhere in the 1990s. Initially though 1975-1977 will be a combined listing as the genre was in its early days at this time.

How have we decided to do this top 10 album list? We'll each select what we feel are the best AOR albums each year, which will probably be around 15-25 albums in total. We'll then take a vote each with the best album getting the highest points and working down to the weakest which will get just one point. The two of us will then combine our points which will give us our top 10 and the rest will be eliminated.

So how will each year's listing work? We'll each review five albums each within the year listing and look to get a review or two out weekly, so it will be a long project.

How have we qualified which albums are on here? The trickiest part without a doubt, as we disagreed initially on which bands should be in and which bands should be out. In the end the deciding factor was what was the actual core sound of the band? For example bands like Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, Chicago and Fleetwood Mac amongst many others were eliminated despite the fact that they were all highly influential on AOR, as in the end we felt that the core sound of these bands was in something else such as jazz rock, soft rock, blues rock, country rock, yacht rock, R&B, soul, pop or even a combination of those styles rather than in what would become known as AOR. Some of these bands of course would later steer into an AOR direction, which will of course qualify them when the time comes. A number of progressive rock bands were eliminated as well, which put a lot of those great early Kansas albums out of the window.

So who did this leave us with? Bands like Journey, Boston or Toto that despite having roots elsewhere mostly dropped those roots or as in the case of Journey adopted an AOR line when new members joined the band. Any band that was considered pomp rock and some borderline AOR/progressive rock bands also made the list and of course anything that was pure AOR from the word go.

@ OccultHawk Yes it means that as well. ;)

While it may seem strange to you guys that I'd start off with an album that's more vintage progressive rock than AOR, this was actually a defining trait in some respects of every major band who formed the bedrock for what was to come in 80's arena rock. Styx, Boston, even Journey...all these guys started off with a strong leaning towards the ambitious, keyboard driven theatrics of their British peers.

In the case of Illinois based AOR group Starcastle, the primary point of reference that's most obvious, of course, were Yes. That booming Rickenbacker bass, the obtuse vocal harmonies, the cosmic rambling lyrics...it's all here, but with a more straightforward bent that made them favorites in the heartland during their heyday. It didn't hurt that lead vocalist Terry Luttrell had originally gotten started musically with REO Speedwagon at the beginning of the 70's, so being a cosmic, high-tenored prophet at the mic was a fitting evolution.

After an auspicious and entertaining self-titled debut in 1976, Starcastle's second album Fountains Of Light in '77 took everything up a notch in most respects. This was partly due to the creative influx of hotshot producer Roy Thomas Baker, well known for his work with Queen at the time and already intimately acquainted with pomp rock by association. Couple that with a relatively sharp songwriting sensibility on the part of the band and everyone being above average at their instruments...and you have a recipe for success, at least in the context of what they were aiming for.

Songwriting-wise, anyone familiar with the dense keyboard orchestrations of Rick Wakeman or Styx's late 70's material will find that in high proportions over this album...and it works like coke-laced auditory magic on the 10-minute opening title track, the pastoral 'Portraits' and minor radio hit closer 'Diamond Song (Deep Is The Light)'. Hell, I'd argue that at this point in the decade Starcastle were actually a better "Yes" sounding band than the guys they supposedly ripped off. The harmonies are an interesting thing, somewhere between the aforementioned Queen, Yes and CSN&Y tonally. I suppose with lyrics like "Thousands have followed in the light of her hands", you know exactly what you've paid for here...but the fantasy flavored spaciness mixed with those dazzling keyboard runs and FM-ready choruses is quite the treat if the mood is right.

While the sound of radio rawk to come would be shaped more prominently by the bands these guys were actually opening for in the latter half of the 70's (such as Boston), you have to give 'em credit: Yes were probably the hardest progressive rock band to actually emulate either in actual performance or even in general "vibe". Just finding guys to do their particular brand of choral harmony would have been a challenge, and yet these supposedly derivative musicians managed to cop Yes's sound convincingly and take it into more commercial directions before Yes themselves thought to do so...and wrote some catchy tunes in the process!

And that, my friends, is a form of genius that doesn't come around too often. Catch you all on our next excursion into AOR's early years next week!

When I listen to that Starcastle album, I often detect a Simon & Garfunkel influence on a few tracks like the "Diamond Song" which comes through over the heavier Yes sounding influences, especially when they sing 'amber and scarlet' :D

Great start

I never heard this music and I'm immediately fascinated with it!

Kansas were in many ways the definitive ‘American progressive rock band’ over their first four albums, largely because their core sound was a combination of classic prog influences and a tinge of traditional American roots rock (boogie, hard rock etc) as well as the traditional prog scene from across the pond. This certainly made the band a unique listen with their somewhat hybrid sound, which stood out from the other American prog bands that were overly obsessed with relying on the classic prog lines of their British peers. The enduring feature of the band and their signature touch was Robby Steinhardt, whose violin was to the band was what the flute was to Jethro Tull.

The band’s first four albums were progressive rock albums of real quality, but it wasn’t until the recording of Leftoverture and its monster hit in “Carry on Wayward Son” the song that brought the band to public attention, that the band hit the super league stakes of arena rock. This in turn directed the band into a more streamlined sound which becomes more evident on the inaccurately named Point of Know Return. What’s kind of special about Point of Know Return, is that It was the first album where the band were able to go into the studio without any pressure to secure a record deal.

On the Point of Know Return gone are the lengthy compositions but the prog-suite tracks do hang around, but by and large the longer style tracks from the previous albums are replaced with shorter tracks. The complexity of the band remains and they do self-indulge with their progressive leanings on symphonic prog tracks like “Paradox” the almost Emerson, Lake & Palmer sounding instrumental “The Spider” the prog rock-meets-hard rock of “”Portrait (He Knew)” with the finest two being “Closet Chronicles” and “Hopelessly Human”. Overall though the band are displaying a conscious drive towards a more streamlined sound that would take them into the more lucrative realms of AOR territory and this drive becomes evident on material like the album opener the eponymous “Point of Know Return” which is a typical upbeat Steve Walsh track with a strong melodic resonance to it. Robbie Steinhardt the violin player gets one sole vocal lead on the complex driven arena rock track “Lightning’s Hand” but the most accomplished AOR track on the album is “Sparks of the Tempest” one of the purest and best AOR tracks that the band ever put out and the song outro is so fricking cool sounding. “Nobody’s Home” is a late album piano-backed ballad and is a delightful song with not too many poppy jangles. Finally the album’s most famous track needs no introduction “Dust in the Wind” one of the most iconic singles form its era, a timeless classic that still sounds as fresh today as it did way back then.

Like with most of the bands that will be featured in this journal, keyboards/synthesizers play a heavy part in proceedings and they were certainly the showpiece instruments for Kansas and were orchestrated by the band’s two leader’s in Steve Walsh principal vocalist/writer (upbeat tracks) and Kerry Livgren writer (downbeat and ballad tracks) in fact the only negative here is that this comes at the expense of guitarist Rich Williams who doesn’t get the chance to break free as he had done on some of the earlier albums like Masque.

Certain reviewers critique the band for their uneasy alliance between the prog sound that they were born with and the more streamlined and even pop induced sound that they were leaning towards and for that reason an album like Point of Know Return splits opinions more than any other Kansas album, as this is the album where this battle between the band’s identity takes place. For example the album yet again demonstrates the band’s idiosyncratic qualities and the pseudo-intellectual lyrics that they always found hard to do without and they also demonstrate their proggy complexity, but there is also a clear drive to an arena rock sound as evidenced on the album. Personally though I think it’s one of the band’s finest outings if not quite my favourite, that would probably go to two of their earlier efforts, but nevertheless Point of Know Return is a vital listen.

Finally I grew up in a musical culture here in the UK that dismissed bands like Kansas as ‘Faceless Midwestern American Rock’ that should be avoided at all costs. I discovered Kansas not long after I discovered Styx in the 1980s and yes they may have been faceless (hiding behind beards) but hell this band could play and their 1970s discography is one of the most consistent and finest by any American band, and their album covers among the most impressive as well.

The Crystal Ball album would be the first full-blown recording to feature guitarist/vocalist Tommy Shaw who would become a pivotal part of the Styx line-up over the rest of their discography and form a musical love-hate relationship with Dennis DeYoung. Tommy Shaw was a recent addition to the line-up after previous guitarist John Curulewski had left the band after their previous breakthrough album Equinox, which was also their first major label release on A&M.

Now I’ll make no excuses for my biased opinion regarding Styx, as they’re without doubt one of my most beloved of all American bands and this high reputation from me would start with their Equinox and Crystal Ball albums and would only grow from here on. It should be noted that by the time of Equinox and Crystal Ball, that the band were already a veteran outfit as they had already put out four studio albums before these two, but by and large these are just albums for Styx only fans (known as the Wooden Nickel recordings) and some of the best tracks from this period are the well-known single “Lady” and the delightful John Curulewski penned “A Day” with its dreamy feel and Doors like middle section, the band would only really get things rolling in an AOR direction with Equinox and then with Crystal Ball they would build on that change of direction with the addition of Tommy Shaw.

Opening track “Put Me On” starts with the typical Styx keyboard flourish very much their trademark punch and is vocally accompanied by band leader and keyboardist Dennis DeYoung, before the iron sounding vocals of James Young take over and these contrast superbly with the aforementioned keyboard flourishes. The iron man himself then steps in with an impressive guitar solo making this a multi-dimensional track, especially with the dreamy sounding section which makes an appearance towards the end, overall this a is a prog track condensed down into under five minutes something Styx were very adept at doing. The album’s principal single “Mademoiselle” penned by Dennis DeYoung who very much liked French sounding titles, is actually sang by Tommy Shaw and the song is mostly an upbeat affair with a great play-again factor attached to it. “Jennifer” is now where Dennis DeYoung gets in his first solo vocal and it’s a great track, upbeat, vibrant and with that magical Styx outro from Dennis DeYoung, who was at the start of his peak-writing era before he became too obsessed with pop sensibilities and theatrical concepts. The glorious “Crystal Ball” opens with Tommy Shaw’s lovely sounding rustic sounding acoustic guitar and it’s one of the best known songs that the band ever put out and up until recently I always thought it was a band single but it never was, but has always been a mainstay of the band’s set and again the keyboard lead on the song is a sheer delight as well.

The track “Shooz” sounds like something out of the ZZ Top cannon which is no surprise since Tommy Shaw was a southerner compared to the rest of the band who were from Illinois and musically he brought a certain amount of southern musical influences with him and these are most evident on this track especially with his use of slide guitar. “This Old Man” is a great example of how Dennis DeYoung added the personal touch to his music, whether the songs were about real life people, places or just figments of his imagination “This Old Man” is where he sings ‘he dreamed a young man’s dream and now I grow old’ which really typifies the magical career of the band and the song works superbly as a musical duel combination between himself and Tommy Shaw, and is especially highlighted by its clever ‘oh-ah hissing section late in the song. "Clair de Luna/Ballerina" is the showpiece track of the album and again provides the talents of both Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw and for pure brilliance it matches "Suite Madame Blue" from Equinox. The song is again a major accomplishment when you consider how patchy their earlier prog style recordings had been, this track is focused, tight and bombastic all attributes that the band were now excelling with.

One of the most interesting factors from Styx was their constant use of three principal vocalists of which Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw were the primary two, with James Young providing an ever so distinctive third option, despite the fact he had more opportunities on their earlier albums, but his trademark heavy sounding macho guitar leads more than made up for this, but most significantly all three vocalist sounded completely different which only added to the band’s great musical charm.

Despite these forward thinking musical additions of which All-Music described the band as having catchy pop hooks combined with a bombastic guitar sound, the Crystal Ball album would prove to be less successful than the previous Equinox and effectively stalled the band as a commercial venture, but all that would of course change with their next album The Grand Illusion which proved to be even more special than Crystal Ball but in hindsight Crystal Ball is probably the right place to start for anybody wanting to get into this special band.

Are you sure this isn't a prog thread?

A lot of the releases upto around 1977 were prog influenced, but a lot of the featured bands listed here were making the transition to a more obvious AOR sound so most of the proggy stuff you'll see will be at the beginning of this journal and then mostly fade out, which is why we started this journal in 1975 and not just 1977 or 1978.

No. This is a prog thread! :D
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ive-metal.html

......... and its full of boring old Genesis albums. :p:

Only one Genesis so far, but they're coming... mostly it's full of boring Beefheart and Zappa!:p:

Good copy. I'm sorry if my comment was a little snarky.

No problem, say what you want and thanks for viewing. :thumb:

Fu)k! Your like George RR Martin, everyone's waiting for you to finish Winds of Winter (Pounding Decibels) and you go off and start another f'n side project :)

Well it's going to take me a damn sight longer to finishing Pounding Decibels than it will be for George RR Martin to finish A Song of Ice and Fire. :thumb:

Former NYPD trainee Eddie Money started out like many young and aspiring rock stars did: he learned his chops, shifted careers then moved to California to seek his fortunes. Multiple night club showings and one big dollar contract with Columbia Records later, classic rock staples like 'Two Tickets To Paradise' and 'Baby Hold On' took the summer of '77 by storm and became part of the first "wave" of what would later be called AOR. This term in relation to Eddie Money refers to both the radio format he was slotted in AND the sound that would come to define his career (and the career of many others). But the real million dollar question is: was the Money man's self-titled any good beyond the singles?

To these ears, that answer is a resounding yes. While many of the other American AOR bands featured so far (and who have yet to be featured) had their roots in progressive rock or what often gets called "art" rock, Eddie was just a good 'ol rock n roller with a touch of Motown in his tunesmith kit. While that sandpapery voice isn't particularly suited to the brand of theatrical melodicism that defined the Queens and Styxes of the world, Money's soulful pipes burn with real flourish on the punchy 'Don't Worry' and the bluesy, thundering closer 'Gamblin' Man'. This was the sound of mainstream rock n' roll in the late 70's, and it wasn't a bad place to be.

The biggest piece of praise I can give Eddie's self-titled is that its consistent even beyond the obvious singles, and its influence upon AOR is a far easier thing to hear as opposed to, say, Starcastle. The fact that the legendary Bruce Botnick produced it probably didn't hurt either!

Eddie would later become far more "arena rock" oriented as the 80's zeitgeist arrived on the scene, but you can already hear the pieces of what makes AOR such a fun and accessible genre with albums like this one serving as the foundation that paved the way for all the top dollar stuff that was to come. I could certainly think of lesser starting places. :)

Angel were an east coast American band that were quickly branded as a kind of divine and angelic answer to the mighty Kiss, largely due to their affinity with the colour white. The band had actually been discovered by Gene Simmons of Kiss of all people who needless to say was a fan of the band. Marketing wise that Kiss connection was initially well used, as Kiss were of course one of the hottest properties in rock marketing around this time and selling out arenas wherever they went. Therefore image wise Angel would mostly dress in white, which was in stark contrast to their more daring east coast neighbours Kiss, who donned their famous black-dominated garb, but despite these links between the two bands this was where the similarities between the two ended.

As a band Angel went well beyond the basic confines of the good time rock & roll of the Kiss sound and its accompanying theatrics, and in turn gave us an interesting and sometimes deep-feeling amalgamation of AOR, progressive rock and melodic metal all merged together and then all topped off with the dominant keyboard sound of the band. The resulting product was one of the purest AOR releases so far on this listing as the essential ingredients for AOR are there in abundance, which for me come in the shape of energetic and epic rock.

The album cover in hindsight also now feels very AOR, rather than the metal or progressive guise that it could’ve passed for back then. Critics weren’t quite sure what to make of them either and as was often the case when this kind of thing happened preferred to just slam them critically. Also one of their biggest detractors was a certain Frank Zappa who in true Zappa style, made them a subject of one of his songs “Punky’s Whips” where he derided their girly looking appearance.

This their debut album was literally head and shoulders above the rest of their discography and serves to show just how close metal and AOR actually were, as we’ve already discovered with the thin line as well between both progressive rock and the early rising of AOR at this time, it seems like all these styles along with others were a perfect fit for what would become AOR.

Angel were fronted by vocalist Frank DiMino and the talented Geoff Giuffria on keyboards/mellotron, along with the Queen-ish guitar sound of Punky Meadows, all giving us an album that is littered with some great early melodic songs. These include tracks like “Tower” “Long Time” and “Broken Dreams” all full of proggy twists and swirling heavy keyboards, making these tracks instant standouts. In hindsight "Tower" just sounds like very early essential AOR, where the band sing about swords and epic knight adventures, almost pre-empting the epic song matter of say "Hydra" by Toto. "Long Time" is classic 1970s fare with its melodic shifts and any number of bands would've been proud to have a song like this and there's even a hint of Led Zeppelin about it as well. "Broken Dreams" is another accomplished track that sounds like a couple of different songs rolled into one. The classic sounding “Mariner” smacks of being an epic and its soft ballady tones pre-empts the type of songs that great AOR bands would excel at. Finally the likely Kiss comparison is mostly heard on “Rock and Rollers” which actually ends up as being the odd man out on this album musically and sits below the aforementioned songs in terms of quality, before the album closes out with a keyboard based theme track.

This album is a great collection of songs for anybody that likes re-visiting or discovering melodic gems from the 1970s, from a band that unknowingly drafted one of the earliest AOR examples. After their debut album and undoubtedly from considerable record label pressure, the band embarked on a less than interesting career on their following albums and their best success came with their fourth album White Hot which did garner some success.

Interestingly the band later incorporated key AOR artists like Fergie Frederiksen and Ricky Phillips into their line-up, but sadly for Angel it was to no avail and core band members Frank DiMino and Geoff Giuffria would finally go onto other projects. Overall Angel failed to scale any great heights and along with the diminishing quality in their output they finally called it quits around the 1980 period.

Foreigner were without doubt one of the flagship bands of AOR and their debut album the eponymous Foreigner ended up being one of the biggest selling rock albums of 1977 and in fact if anybody were to ask me which is the best starter album for a novice AOR listener then I’d certainly point them in this direction. The album achieved a whopping 5x platinum status in the US alone and gave the band three hit singles in “Feels Like the First Time” “Cold As Ice” and “Long, Long Way from Home” with the first two here actually cracking the higher echelons of the Billboard top 10. What makes the Foreigner debut and indeed their first four albums appealing, is the simple fact that the band found an accomplished rock-orientated formula without any excess baggage. The majority of the tracks on their albums could often be considered ‘singles material’ because the band had a strong knack of consistently writing material that sounded like it was readily available for radio airplay.

What made Foreigner interesting was the cultural background of its original members, It contained frontman Lou Gramm who I should point out here was one of the finest exponents of what an AOR frontman should be all about, along with fellow Americans Al Greenwood and Ed Gagliardi. They combined with three British musicians Mick Jones the other pivotal member with Lou Gramm, Ian McDonald and Dennis Elliot, and it was the first two that really gave the band their unique character. Mick Jones had originally been in Spooky Tooth the old organ-dominated hard rock band, that had certainly been highly influential on Deep Purple and it’s clear that this sound was injected into the veins of the band. Ian McDonald (keyboards/guitar) had been in probably the finest line-up that King Crimson ever put out and certainly came into the Foreigner set-up with the biggest reputation.

The ten tracks on the album despite their obvious straight-forward rock approach, are actually very well crafted rock pieces that really do stand the test of time and have a lot more depth musically than they’re often given credit for and none come any better than the opening “Feels Like the First Time” which feels like the band’s very own blueprint on how the rest of their output would sound. The following “Cold as Ice” has an even more instant sound with its piano intro quickly being supplanted by the instant Lou Gramm vocal style, something that the John Wetton Asia era material would evoke as well, both these tracks are great driving arena rock staples. If the band had found the perfect blueprint for their sound with the album opener, they then added an even more durable one in “Long, Long Way from Home” which also introduced us to their use of a sax/synth highlight. “Woman Oh Woman” sounds like a staple AOR track, as does the heavier “At War with the World” and “I Need You“ is a strong album closer.

Not all the songs on the album though do it for me, as songs like “Headknocker” sound like typical bar room material and this type of thing was done far better by the likes of the J.Geils Band, but its thumping style does keep it in the tone of the album material. “Fool for You Anyway” ends up sounding like one of those warm album tracks often employed by American artists of the 1970s, not a bad track at all but not overly suited to Foreigner in this instance. The keyboards and synths of the band are not dominantly used like some of their fellow bands, but instead they’re well-crafted to fully enhance the band’s sound and feature in pivotal points of several songs. This example is best highlighted on a track like “The Damage is Done” which despite being led by Lou Gramm’s vocals ends up as being one of the most accomplished songs on the whole album and it’s an effort not to be missed.

The oddity on the album and certainly one of the most interesting tracks the band ever put out comes in the form of “Starrider” which is actually sung by Mick Jones and the song smacks of that epic 1970s proggy/pomp rock feel and only serves to make me wonder why the band didn’t attempt more material like this. Perhaps omitting this type of material is one of the reasons why the band were quickly embraced, as their lack of interest in tinkering with a progressive rock sound and adopting a far more basic hard rock line in the form of AOR was far better suited to the modern musical terrain.

It could be argued that Foreigner were in many ways the first manufactured AOR band, quite simply due to that fact that the band members were geared up to produce a sound that worked perfectly with radio airplay and would be able to shift millions of records, a formula that would soon be the prime driver behind the AOR shield for most bands. This belief is supported by the fact that the band totally shied away from the progressive roots of both Mick Jones and Ian McDonald with the exception of one song and into strictly radio friendly material.

With this album the band found their perfect niche stylistically, they never had the smooth sound of say Toto or Journey and they certainly didn’t have the panache of Styx, but what they did provide us with was a solid line that straddled hard rock meets AOR combined with extremely catchy songs that were all produced in the most accomplished manner. This was largely thanks to the grittier sounding vocals of Lou Gramm combined with the rougher around the edges feel of the band’s sound, compared to the flawless sound most other AOR bands would aspire to. The band not only had a consistency in the type of material that they were writing, but also in their ability to turn out multi-platinum albums year after year starting with their debut and this certainly showed that they were never going to get bogged down with needless perfection like Boston who ended up giving us albums once in a blue moon.

In the halcyon days of California's soft rock dream, there was once a group of kids who wanted to be the next Beach Boys, or perhaps a CSN&Y-ish outfit if possible. However, an early encounter in 1971 with King Crimson in the midst of one of their U.S. live shows promoting In The Wake Of Poseidon would forever alter the DNA of this burgeoning conclave of talent and their focus: four years later, future yacht rock kings Ambrosia hit the airways with a punch and a kick quite different from Styx and (a year later) Boston...but they made quite a mark, blending prog and early AOR with an unfettered ease unique to the period.

Mixed and partly produced by the legendary Alan Parsons, this glorious sun-dazed West Coast AOR debut is not only one of the best albums of the 1970's, but remains one of the coolest crossover records in the entirety of recorded music history. While its status as one of the first "real" American AOR records is interesting, there's just as much King Crimson and Gentle Giant in this album as there is Steely Dan and what Kansas + Styx were getting their feet wet in, and that made them stand out in a good way.

At this point, Ambrosia was a power quartet led by the pipes and phenomenal guitar + bass work of David Pack and Joe Puerta respectively. These two shared lead vocal duties, though it was Pack who would also front and compose the group's biggest hits in the late 70's and early 80's (such as soft rock staples 'How Much I Feel' and 'You're The Biggest Part Of Me'). They would also be present on Alan Parsons's first Project in 1976, the Edgar Allen Poe-inspired classic Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, further demonstrating that the link between progressive rock and AOR-ready radio friendly material wasn't as difficult to connect as critics might have thought.

So basically, although outfits like The Alan Parsons Project and Toto would be influenced by this album's sound to a substantial degree in the second half of the 70's, nothing sounds quite like it before or since. 'Nice, Nice, Very Nice' sports an addictive groove and some Kurt Vonnegut derived lyrical content, resulting in one helluva good idea, but it's on radio-golden cuts like 'Holdin' On To Yesterday' and strange sprawlers along the lines of 'Drink Of Water' and 'Mama Frog' where this band's uncanny talent at blending killer melodies with proggy pathos is unveiled to a glorious maximum.

So, not your average 80's rock template, yet not quite "yacht rock" or a pure progressive rock album. In fact, this album is very difficult to categorize. Still, its important to the overall development of America's AOR sound and deserves its place in the top 5.

Great quote and after listening to Fountains for the first time, thanks to you, I'm inclined to agree.

I really enjoyed that record!

PS Readers should take note that the quote up there is referring to the date that Fountains was released. Taken out of context it could be read to mean it's better than Yes overall which wasn't the author's intention.

The Yes albums from this period were the mediocre Going for the One and the poor Tomato

I actually consider Going for the One excellent (Wonderous Stories, Vevey Revisited-on the Deluxe version) and Tormato hit or miss, but when it hits it hits.

I would have to take more careful consideration about Tormato vs. Fountains but no way I'm saying it's better than Going.

I still think it's great quote though because Fountains is really very surprisingly good.

Followed up by the lesser-known and somewhat failed Cucumber and Onion, to say nothing of the ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful double concept album Caesar Salad... :laughing:

Don't forget Ultimate Spinach

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulti...pinach_(album)

I thought Irish jokes were meant to be funny. :D

Well....long story short folks, Equinox is an insanely important album in regards to AOR. Until this point, Styx was considered to be a purely "art-rock" outfit with a bit more groove than your typical band at this point in the 70's, and nobody thought they had much of a future at the time. With this album, however, the shift into more commercial territory with a bigger emphasis on catchy, pompish synth breaks and catchy guitar leads erupted on radio at the time with lead single 'Lorelei', which quickly soared to the Top 30 and brought Dennis DeYoung and co. some much needed exposure. You could see the eyes of the folks at A&M projecting dollar signs onto the nearest wall when this thing went Gold, lol!

And while most of us know that particular song, the rest of the tunes don't slouch none either. In fact, you can hear arena rock being formulated as a genre here, the beginnings of something that a few crossover records around the same time were starting to grab onto (such as Queen's A Night At The Opera). Accessible, yet grandiose and absolutely riveting in a live setting once you throw in a few extended drum and guitar solos.

For all intents and purposes therefore, this was the start of the American butt rock revolution. You can hear it in the key-soaked uppercut of 'Light Up', the ELP-gone-bar-band riffage of 'Midnight Ride', and even a more elaborate, delicious form of what would become the power ballad in fan favorite 'Suite Madame Blue', a proggy little journey that deals with the ideal vs reality conundrum of the American Dream for the skeptical and idealistic alike.

If you like important albums and are looking for a good starting point to get into Styx chronologically, this is a very impressive album. If you also love AOR in general though, I think this is essential listening and a good entry place for the snobby progheads who don't believe in pop sensibility or having fun. ;)

After the band’s commercial breakthrough with Equinox in 1975, the band then stalled on the even more balanced Crystal Ball album in 1976 but by the time of their seventh album The Grand Illusion, the band would finally become one of the biggest rock bands in the USA and The Grand Illusion a mainstay at the higher end of the album chart. The Grand Illusion is quite simply one of my all-time favourite albums and even today its brilliance still has the ability to mesmerize me and send me to a far away place, something that the best Styx recordings have always been able to do. If I had my way this album would’ve been in the number one slot on this year’s listing, but as we have a democratic voting system this went to another band. The Styx music principal at this time was to combine intellectual keyboard-orientated pomp rock with a hard rock backbone and plenty of pseudo-intellectual lyrics thrown in as well. The band knew that focused shorter songs were the way to go and with a strong eye on commercialism the band were very much forerunners of the AOR genre.

Now for such a classic album not every song here is great by any means and I’ll get these tracks out of the way first. The opening and title track “The Grand Illusion” is a credible enough track and goes through various stylistic changes which kind of mirrors the opening track “Put Me On” from the previous Crystal Ball album and Dennis DeYoung carries the song both lyrically and vocally well enough. The song also makes another appearance at the album end where it acts as a reprise. “Superstars” is a poor track and a real duffer and strangely enough is the only song on the album that despite being sung by Tommy Shaw, features all the songwriters working together for the only time on the album and this change in focus shows.

The first of the classic tracks starts with “Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)” a gloriously penned Tommy Shaw track that matches his “Crystal Ball” effort from the previous album. The song starts with a wonderful spiralling keyboard intro that is mixed in with an acoustic guitar and this combo carries the essence of the song, which really gets underway when Tommy Shaw announces ‘relax, take it easy’ and here he comes across as a kindly psychiatrist that is trying to relax his patient before embarking on one of his great musical fables. The album finally goes into its realm of excellence with track four where it almost changes face with the 6 minute “Come Sail Away” and a song like this on the previous two albums would’ve operated as an epic album closer just think “Suite Madame Blue” and “Clair de Lune” from those albums, but here it features slap bang in the middle of the album and starts with a simple piano base and then moves into a strong ballad before embarking onto being a powerful rocker.

The second side of the album starts with “Miss America” and is another one of the great Styx songs and one of James Young’s finest moments and he was certainly the iron man that put the steel into the band. “Miss America” starts with that haunting almost fantasy sounding Keyboard intro that permeates through most of the album, before embarking as a galloping rocker and its deceptively basic hard rock riffs yearn back to the glory days of American hard rock of the early 1970s. “Man in the Wilderness” is a Tommy Shaw track that I can listen to all day long and he was really a master of evoking feelings of melancholy into his work and this is a dreamy sounding effort full of his fabled lyrics. Finally “Castle Walls” with its heartbeat intro which combines neatly with the band’s medieval vibe, is one of the great Dennis DeYoung efforts as he combines cryptic lyrics with dreamy pomp and the guitar work of Tommy Shaw here is exceptional, as is the keyboard work of Dennis DeYoung.

The winning formula on The Grand Illusion is without doubt the unique identity of its best tracks where the band’s three primary songwriters and vocalists Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw and James Young have sole writing and vocal credits for their own songs and it’s almost like each member has tried to outdo the other a la Beatles on Abbey Road, whereas in the past a large number of the band’s material was either jointly written or had a different songwriter and vocalist combination, a combination I always loved but here the change in direction clearly enhances this album. I think the album cover is glorious as well with its vertical wooded trees which evoke a medieval setting and a medieval vibe can be heard on a number of tracks as well. The multi-coloured horse and the elements of the woman's face add to the album cover's allure. I’m not sure if the album title with its ambition is a nod to the classic Jean Renoir film of the same title, often considered one of the best French films ever but I'd like to think that it is. The Grand Illusion is not a concept album from what I can tell, but the name the grand illusion points to some kind of deceptive function behind the whole album.

When I think The Grand Illusion I think epic and unique songwriting, focused and timeless efforts, glorious synthesizer flourishes, pseudo-medieval elements and interesting lyrics. The Grand Illusion along with the following Pieces of Eight would be the two greatest statements from this band and benchmarks in the 1970s American rock scene, a truly legendary album.

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Agreed

Caught a pretty great Foreigner concert a few years ago and got the privilege to watch Lou Gramm climb up the side of a metal tower and dangle off while singing. Even though he is getting older he still put his heart into it and made it entirely a great time to watch.


Keep up the great work in your journal, I like it!

A 60 year old dangling off a tower that was worth the entry ticket alone :yikes:

Glad to see that you're enjoying the journal and keep reading, we should be starting our first full year soon which will be 1978.

Is there anyone who isn't at least peripherally aware of this album? The road to Boston and that definitive magical self-titled which would define AOR in the final years of the 70's was not an easy one. Vocalist Brad Delp and producer/mastermind Tom Scholz met each other way back in 1970, but it would take multiple lineup changes, several band turnovers, hundreds of demo submissions and six freakin' years of hard work before anyone even agreed to sign them. The label in question that actually agreed to the signing was Epic Records, who at that point had multiple success stories under their belt and were open to new possibilities and innovation.

The recording process for Boston's self-titled is considered to be a major event in the overall evolution of music recording. For one thing, Scholz insisted on using his own custom basement studio setup instead of a major L.A. location to do the recording, and ended up splitting the producer's royalty as a result. However, the implications were interesting: Scholz's approach opened the door for particularly savvy bands with a DIY approach in later years to take the initiative in their music's recording process.

Boston was completed and released on August 8th, 1976 to an unprecedented level of acclaim, going on to sell 17 million copies in the U.S. and becoming one of the fastest selling debut records ever. Although three key singles were released over a twelve month period, the entire album became a staple of the burgeoning AOR radio format and helped popularize the slick arena-rock sound in a way no other album has before or since.

Ironically, most of the key songs here had existed in demo form going all the way back to the earliest part of the 70's, including the timeless opener 'More Than A Feeling' and the progressive rock influenced 'Foreplay/Long Time'. Highly polished in a way few other albums were at the time, Delp's double-tracked layered vocals in conjunction with Scholz's home grown studio wizardry was insanely innovative, incorporating Classical-music influenced chord transitions and multiple-part harmonized guitar solos. On top of that, none of the equipment was overly expensive: 'More Than A Feeling' was recorded on a $100 acoustic Yamaha and the overall production only cost a few thousand dollars at a time when studios were charging tens of thousands for overpriced equipment and hours billed.

Personally though, my favorite songs on the album aren't the ones you hear all that much. For me, its the closing triumvirate of 'Hitch A Ride', 'Something About You' and the Kinks-ish 'Let Me Take You Home Tonight' where the magic is fully realized. The first of these three is special because of the acoustic/electric dynamics, but the last has a furious energy to it that might surprise critics of the "corporate rock" ideal that Boston popularized.

From my perspective, Boston was one of those albums that had a million implications both good and bad for the music industry. For AOR, it set a high bar both sonically and sales-wise that would drive record companies to groom bands such as Journey and Foreigner into the arena stompers they would become. It also validated AOR as a genre and hooked millions of people across the planet years before Michael Jackson's Thiller would pull a similar hat trick in 1983.

Negatively however, it set an unrealistic standard and template that would drive many groups into a sort of "sameness". Like any success, repeating 'the Boston formula" became many a record label's wish as the 70's turned into the 80's, and echoes of this can still be felt today.

All that aside, a classic album is still a classic. #1 indeed!

Think I've posted this here before. That album was released while I was still in high school (just north of Boston) and it really exploded during that winter, which happened to be a really bad one for New England. Tons of snow and bitter cold. Can't remember how many times we sat out in the school parking lot before school blasting this 8 track while smoking the first doob of the day.

The album was great either way, but be able to consider the band a home team made it that much better.

The perfect example of how a certain album reflects something that you'll always remember throughout your life. Nearly all my favourite albums operate as important timelines for me as well.

We're more or less about to start our 1978 list in the next week or two, which of course will be just 10 albums exclusive to that year and how the rest of the journal will continue. But at the end of each year we might include the odd album that we think is worth a mention as well. The brief album review below was previously written for my other journal.


If the Angel debut showed just how thin the line was around this time between heavy metal/hard rock and AOR, then The Baby’s debut would show it at its thinnest. The Babys were a British band that consisted of John Waite-Bass/Vocals, Wally Stocker-Guitar, Michael Corby-Rhythm/Keyboards and Tony Brock-drums. From the word go the band were seemingly being groomed for stardom and were on the Chrysalis label and had Bob Ezrin on production (even though there is little of his production touches on show here) and the band looked the part as well especially the cool looking Michael Corby.

Their debut album would be the best album that the band put out and despite being their best, it’s still an album with a number of flaws. Quite quickly the quality of their work dried up and the band would soon garner the label of being a band of potential and nothing more and in 1981 they would eventually fold. In hindsight the band were nothing more than vehicles for some of its members most notably frontman John Waite, who of course would go onto find success as a solo artist and future member Jonathan Cain-Keyboards would of course find stardom with Journey. The debut album is a combination of melodic rock, with a heavy backdrop and an emphasis on commercialism, even though there is no obvious single here. Standout tracks are “If You’ve Got the Time” “Over and Over” and the epic “Dying Man” a song I can listen to anytime, in fact it’s one of my favourite video montages on You Tube.

Frontman John Waite would become a central figure in American commercial rock of the early to mid 1980s and thanks to him and future member Jonathan Cain, The Baby's are still fondly remembered.

lol8track

lol@lackofperspectiveandmp3dullard

lol@probableoldmanrantaboutvinyl

Firstly let's get this ridiculous album title out of the way, as it has to be probably one of the silliest album titles ever, but then again it's not really an album title easily forgotten. In fact the album cover and title have been voted amongst the worst of all time and luckily with the exception of their 1990 album The Earth, a Small Man, His Dog and a Chicken! the band never ventured into this kind of foolhardiness again.

REO Speedwagon at this time were one of the numerous 'working and faceless' American rock bands of the 1970s and this terminology is something mostly promoted by me, despite the fact that this negative terminology was reguarly aimed at bands like Kansas. REO were a 'working' band in the respect that they were constantly issuing out albums that were often mediocre and were constantly touring year after year, but they were still commercially viable because the American listening collective of the 1970s were buying albums from bands like The Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Boston, Kansas and Styx by the bucketload, therefore bands like REO Speedwagon fitted nicely into this 'niche market' despite lacking the quality of these above bands. They were 'faceless' as most people had little idea of what the band looked like outside their immediate fanbase, they had no pin-up boy a la Robert Plant or a rock icon like Freddie Mercury, they were in essence just another rock band looking for that big break. Now what REO Speedwagon did have was the ability to really play as a rock band should and if they could get the material right they would be in with a shout of stepping up a league.

You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can't Tuna Fish would finally be the album where the band started to gel and the playing ability of the band was now finally complemented by consistently quality material and the band would reap the rewards of this accomplishment. The album would crack the US Billboard top 40 and go onto sell over 2 million copies in the in the USA, which would gradually help to build the band into an AOR pillar mid-western style. The album opens with its lead singles "Roll with the Changes" and this vibrant track is enhanced with female backing vocalists. The following "Time for Me to Fly" with its acoustic guitar courtesy of Kevin Cronin, would along with the opening track lay down the REO template in terms of style and the band over ensuing albums would improve on this template. The fiery energy of the album kicks in with songs like "Runnin' Blind" along with album closer "Say You Love Me or Say Good Night". The album's other tracks like "Blazin' Your Own Trail Again" and "Do You Know Where Your Woman Is Tonight" sound like Staple REO tracks and in fact there are no really weak tracks on the whole album.

Besides the band finally gelling on the above tracks, what this album does have is that vital component of vibrant energy that is provided by both frontmen Kevin Cronin and guitarist Gary Richrath, the former with his fresh sounding voice and the latter with some really catchy hooks. This was a combination that certain other AOR bands would soon flourish with, make no mistake about it You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can't Tuna Fish is one of the most consistent releases in this year's diary and sounds like perfect lazy afternoon American cruising music.

It had been a long road for REO Speedwagon in reaching their seventh studio album and it would effectively be their lauchpad into becoming one of the biggest bands in the whole AOR genre as the band would themselves be selling by the bucketload in the 1980s. The negative 'working and faceless' adjectives that I applied to them earlier would literally evaporate, as frontman Kevin Cronin with the right material would become one of the the most invigorating frontmen within the whole AOR genre, whilst the rest of the band looked like prime playing AOR material at the same time.