Classic & Current Contemporary Non-Schlock-Rock Metropolitan Music

1980s AOR Radio - Rise of Album Radio

Album Radio Gives Rise to AOR

AOR — the "Album Oriented Rock" format — emerged on the airwaves in America during the 1970s in reaction to tightly playlisted, teen-oriented Top 40 AM radio. While AM blasted The Osmond Brothers' "One Bad Apple," Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Knock Three Times," and bubble-gum rock, FM was playing King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man," Fleetwood Mac's "Sands of Time," and Pink Floyd's 24-minute "Echoes." FM featured what were known as "album stations" in that their emphasis was on ALBUMS and ARTISTS rather than SONGS as in the '60s. DJs with the goal of sharing music rather than being stars brought was to become known as "progressive rock" to the airwaves. This laid-back format was the antithesis of the screaming DJ playing three-minute pop songs.

As the FM underground grew and developed, however, these stations became more commercialized. The corporate rock sound was born, defined by bands such as Journey, Foreigner, and Styx. AOR radio created a safe home for these bands. Artists who did not have that distinctive AOR sound were left out. Consequently, artists who wanted to be successful on AOR radio in America knew they would have to fit the mold of corporate rock in order to make it.

It was during this period of AOR development that consultancies formed to advise these stations how to get the most listeners in order to acquire better ratings, and in turn, make more money. Free-form playlists were replaced by more rigid and restrictive programming systems. By the end of the '70s, AOR radio had become as formulaic as Top 40 radio. What began as an underground cult music outlet was now big business with a target audience of 18-to-34-year-olds.

Much of the commercial music at the end of the decade had become overproduced and predictable. What we were hearing on the radio seemed more the influence of record company executives and producers, rather than creative, innovative artists. Emphasis was placed more on skill than creativity.

But what happened as the '80s rolled around was that the restrictiveness of AOR radio began to choke it. AOR radio had become so formulaic that it was boring. Programmers were no longer willing to take chances now that they had made it to the top. Consultants and programmers felt very comfortable with what they had helped to create. Corporate rock and sound-alike bands dominated the airwaves. The public reacted by turning their radios off or tuning elsewhere.

"One thing that has happened since 1978 through '82 is that AOR didn't start to take chances," says Ted Utz, Program Director at WHJY East Providence, RI. "Things kind of got boring. We were playing the same music that we had always played. Things that we were comfortable with. The amount of new music we were playing was significantly less. We were relying on the oldies more, and I think that had a lot to do with the state of the music industry. What we were accepting on a mass level was nothing really new. It was new product but it wasn't anything creative."

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