What is AOR?
AOR means Album Oriented Rock (in the UK often mistakenly called 'Adult Oriented Rock' - although it is indeed an adult format), also sometimes referred to as Classic Rock. This music category has its roots in the middle to late 60s. At that time the standard for radio stations were short songs (singles or 45rpm records). During this same time, the baby boom generation was coming of age. This audience which had grown up on Rock 'N' Roll tastes were developing more sophisticated tastes. They were buying 33 1/3rpm. Most of the artists listened to produced protest music, which served as the "anthems" for this coming of age generation. Top 40 radio stations did not touch these songs since they were considered to be "too long" and "too controversial" to fit in the format. The music soon became known as "underground".

The golden age of AOR where the eighties. AOR had by then vanguished Top 40, survived Disco and Punk and everything was looking promising with young artists like Rush, Aldo Nova and Triumph to rock into the next millennium. However, in the late eighties and beginning of the nineties AOR suffered from new musical influences like grunge and other alternative rock which gained a lot of airplay at MTV, AOR was totally ignored by MTV.

Though, AOR did not die, it went in the underground again and starting from the mid nineties it started to reanimate itself with the creation of new promising labels like the now disbanded labels Empire and Long Island Records and the still active Now & Then Records and MTM Music. AOR gained popularity again and disbanded groups like Journey and Boston prepared for their come-back. 

Now in 2002, AOR is especially very popular in Japan and is has regained a lot of popularity in Europe. When will the US wake up from its long long AOR-sleep?

This website is currently still in start-up phase, please email me any bugs you experience.

Every month new albums will be featured here, together with some sound samples to check out these gems. All of them are taken from my private collection.