Something i noticed about AOR bands

I brought this up on the CMR but i figured i might mention it here too, does anyone notice how as AOR bands get older, their music gets more and more mellow? It happened to Journey, it happened to Foreigner, it happened to styx (cyclorama did have some good rockers, but a ton of ballads and mid-tempo stuff too), etc. Are there any established AOR bands who are still putting out upbeat rock albums out there?

Hadley wrote:

I brought this up on the CMR but i figured i might mention it here too, does anyone notice how as AOR bands get older, their music gets more and more mellow? It happened to Journey, it happened to Foreigner, it happened to styx (cyclorama did have some good rockers, but a ton of ballads and mid-tempo stuff too), etc. Are there any established AOR bands who are still putting out upbeat rock albums out there?

I think that is incorrect - those bands did go through a mellow, adult contemporary phase but Journey, Foreigner and Styx have all released hard rocking albums since. Just listen to any of their recent releases. The mellow stuffed happened when they wanted to sell more records. In today's world, they re releasing harder rockin albums.

I think it's funny how the meaning of AOR changed from Album oriented cuts from great bands that were much deeper then singles to soft rock.

This isn't restricted to AOR. Bands of all genres mellow with age.

Eyesore wrote:

This isn't restricted to AOR. Bands of all genres mellow with age.

Not Ministry. Al's venom has only gotten more poisonous.

tohostudios wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

This isn't restricted to AOR. Bands of all genres mellow with age.

Not Ministry. Al's venom has only gotten more poisonous.

Man, those first couple albums were quite a shock the first time I'd heard them. Haha.

Hadley wrote:

I brought this up on the CMR but i figured i might mention it here too, does anyone notice how as AOR bands get older, their music gets more and more mellow? It happened to Journey, it happened to Foreigner, it happened to styx (cyclorama did have some good rockers, but a ton of ballads and mid-tempo stuff too), etc. Are there any established AOR bands who are still putting out upbeat rock albums out there?

I think Journey is back to rocking more now than before actually. I think if you look the new album from Toby Hitchcock (Pride of Lions) he just flat rocks on his new cd.