They are the bands who have moved hundreds of millions of albums, singles, and concert tickets. They ruled the radio airwaves. And their music was rewound and fast forwarded over and over again on cassettes.
And decades after any of their songs last appeared on the sales charts, you can still hear them in movies, on television commercials, and dominating Classic Rock playlists. Their appeal has now extended to a third generation.
Yet, if you believed critics, acts like Journey, Boston, Heart, Toto, Kansas, Foreigner, Heart, Styx, Loverboy, Night Ranger, REO Speedwagon, and Starship are dismissed as “AOR” (album oriented rock) or “Corporate Rock.” And not worthy of serious study or even unironic enjoyment at face value.
“No genre of music has been more misunderstood, so consistently scorned. No, AOR is out on its own in the unloved stakes…this in spite of it being one of the most enduring forces in American popular music,” writes music journalist Paul Rees.
“The implication being that this was music made by committee and rolled off a production line to a fixed blueprint. Something mechanical, sterile, and wholesale. In reality, AOR’s figureheads were masters of their craft…the greatest of their records shine still as exquisite examples of minimalist art: verse-bridge-indelible chorus.”
Well, Rees more than makes his case for the majesty and lasting impact of songs like “Don’t Stop Believin,” “Hold the Line,” “Sister Christian,” “What About Love?” “Carry On Wayward Son,” “Lady,” “Keep On Loving You,” “Working for the Weekend,” “Feels Like the First Time,” and scores of more you know every word to in the massive Raised on Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine, and Payola—The AOR Glory Years 1976-1986 (528 pp., $30, Da Capo).
This glorious oral history—with nothing but straight quotes from its subjects—features members of all those bands from the songs above, plus many more. Also, individual artists like Bryan Adams, Pat Benatar, Phil Collins, Eddie Money, and Billy Squier. Record producers, managers, journalists, and DJs also round out with their comments and memories touching on the creative and the business sides. And the creative business (“Hey DJ, want free hookers and blow? Just play my act’s new single…”).
And sometimes, those memories don’t quite match. Members of Journey, REO Speedwagon, and Styx offer conflicting versions of various events both on and off stage and personalities and egos clash. And some bring up include decades-long resentments like an ugly fish hauled from a lake via some very barbed lines.
Many also mention how the rise of MTV meant that every song seemed to have to have an accompanying video. Great for mostly unknown, good looking, young English acts. Not so much for hairy, pushing-middle-aged guys who often avoided being seen even on their own album covers.
Some adapted. Most famously how the rock/hippie vibe of Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson morphed immediately into heavily made up sex dolls with giant teased hair and tight, almost superhero-like outfits. Today, both ladies bemoan the visual image, but can’t argue that the new image resurrected the band’s commercial fortunes and even exceeded any previous sales.
Eventually, hair metal and then grunge pushed out the AOR sound and songs. And the influence of traditional radio waned. But in this case, what goes around not only came around, but exceeded it.
Many of the AOR/Classic Rock band continue to play to huge audiences, even as their output of new, original material becomes a trickle (or stops completely) and fewer players onstage actually appeared on said original recordings. The current lineups of Foreigner and Lynyrd Skynyrd feature no original or classic members. Journey has two and Toto only one. Loverboy, though, retains 4/5ths of their hitmaking gang.
But thanks to social media, TikTok, and placements in movies, commercials, and TV shows (Glee, Stranger Things, Supernatural, the Sopranos) there is an entirely new, younger and media-hungry audience for these tunes. Where number of downloads and streams were yesterday’s vinyl and cassette sales.
Who knew a Hispanic TikToker filming himself riding a skateboard and chugging cranberry juice could rocket Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” into pop culture consciousness? Enough that even Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood filmed their own response versions?
Like other music oral history books Nothin’ But a Good Time (hair metal), Can’t Slow Down (the music of 1984), and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (‘60s/’70s girl groups), Raised on Radio offers no-frills commentary, deep cut stories, and the words of many, many voices to tell a concentrated story. And this one rocks.