So far, I think everybody gets the idea of the AOR songs I'm talking about. Great ones you all chose there. I wanna give special kudos to Feral for the King Crimson and Geordie tracks. Thanks, Feral, for all those songs. Hopefully someone will make mention of a very obscure artist/band and a hit song associated w/that artist. There were plenty of them during the 70's, 80's & 90's. I can't list them all, though. Power pop counts for this thread, too. Cheap Trick began as power pop as did Badfinger. AOR stations did play Elvis Costello & The Attractions throughout the 70's & 80's. And XenaGuy, I'm a huge Rush fan. I've seen them in concert a few times.

Ciao! Keep this thread going. Rock on!!

-Kong

I know, I myself just wasn't sure if they were considered AOR. Still Of The Night is one of the best hard rock songs, my favorite by Whitesnake.

XenaGuy, actually AOR stand for 4 different things:

Album Oriented Rock

Album Oriented Radio (in the 60's & 70's some Top 40 stations branched out to non-single album cuts just like rock stations did; "Isn't She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder is one of those pop album cuts from the 70's)

Adult Oriented Rock

Adult Oriented Radio

So, XG, you are correct that AOR stands for Adult Oriented Rock but also Album Oriented Rock. Hope that helped.

-Kong

Still trying to wrap my head around this thread. Just awesome. Soundgarden Whitesnake New Wave

The Alice Cooper clip reminded me of one of my favs, 'Only Women Bleed'.

Really hope this thread takes off big time, great idea!

Also wondering how more modern stuff might fit in, like At The Drive In?

Ten Years After...never heard them on the radio, til everyone started using this in movies and commercials and shit.



Quite a few from GFR's second album...before the American Band hit, bleh. Great bass.



I hated all the Jane's Addiction singles, but they had some decent songs:



Same with Silverchair, singles were ok, but the album had better, played a few times on radio before dropped:



And quite a few people hated this band altogether, but I dug it. Again, didn't care for the Vintage Eyes single.



...And if you know Crowbar, well, not much more to say. Heard them a single time on a rock station...guess they were too heavy.



I'm just kinda browsing my library here, sorry for jumping decades.

"We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions" by Queen is certainly not underrated AOR. "Champions" hit #4 on the American Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart in 1977. It's one of Queen's 5 top rock radio hits, alongside U.S. #1 pop hits "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" & "Another One Bites The Dust" (both from 1980), U.S. Top 5 pop single "Bohemian Rhapsody" (charted twice, #9 in 1976 & #2 in 1992), and the band's first American smash hit pop single "Killer Queen" (#12 in 1975.) Now the oldies stations are playing "W.W.R.Y./W.A.T.C." (the AOR & classic rock stations have always played the pair together as far as I've known.) The album it comes from "News of The World" has several tracks that are highly underrated. I think "News..." is an underrated album. The other charting single from the album is "It's Late" which is rarely played on the radio anymore. That's as underrated of a song as underrated can get.