AOR
REO Speedwagon: R.E.O. Speedwagon: The Band That Flies Together
Report and Interview by Steven Rosen, Circus Raves, November 1974
WHAT REALLY GOES on after hours in Rock 'n' Roll Land? When a band is not touring or performing what do they do to take ...
Loggins & Messina, Poco: Loggins & Messina: Mother Lode; Poco: Cantamos
Review by Jerry Gilbert, ZigZag, January 1975
INITIALLY THE main difference between these two progeny of the Buffalo Springfield is one of sophistication. While Poco strive desperately to recapture past glories, Loggins ...
Profile and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, March 1975
NO QUESTION about it. Styx were stuck. Their second album had lain on the record warehouse shelves for two years doing nothing but gather dust. ...
Andy Pratt: Avenging Andy Rides Again
Interview by Stephen Demorest, Circus, August 1976
THREE YEARS AGO, Andy Pratt had bats in his belfry. Flutter, flutter -you could hear the unrequited passions playing hide-and-go-seek in his psyche. ...
Peter Frampton, Gary Wright: Peter Frampton: Empire Pool, Wembley, London
Live Review by Chris Salewicz, NME, October 1976
Rock genius...or just another biodegradable pretty boy? C. SALEWICZ sinks his nashers in P. FRAMPTON's persona and finds it... ALL SMILE AND NO TEETH! ...
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, November 1976
FEW BANDS have enjoyed the stability of Chicago, those rather dull "pioneers of jazz-rock" whose 'If You Leave Me Now' not only tops the charts ...
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, December 1976
THIS ONE I rather like. Not so much for its musical qualities but for the strange sense of homour through which these five debonair Chicagoans ...
Interview by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1977
Mick Fleetwood takes us through a history of the band from 'Albatross' on, and is joined by Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham to talk about the Fleetwood Mac and Rumours albums.
File format: mp3; file size: 29.8mb, interview length: 32' 33" sound quality: ****
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (Warner Bros.)
Review by Stephen Demorest, Creem, May 1977
SURE, THIS album deserves platinum status a much as the next Kiss LP, but frankly there's only one cut that really sends me – 'Dreams', ...
Boston: The Biggest Unknown Group On The Planet
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, May 1977
THERE ARE five people in Boston. Barry, Tom, Sib, Brad and Fran. One year ago no one knew who they were. Today no one knows ...
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, December 1977
GREG KIHN again? Does that mean I missed the first one? Suppose it does. Oh, well. So it goes. ...
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, January 1978
BOB WELCH is a hit. After stints in Fleetwood Mac and H. Metal outfit Paris he is enjoying chart action/success with his French Kiss album ...
Review by Paul Rambali, NME, February 1978
EXCESS AND incongruity seem to be the key factors at work here. An abundance of diverse stylistic elements piledriven and packed high into what must ...
Kansas, Styx, Aerosmith: American revolution: Aerosmith, Boston, Kansas and co.
Overview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, February 1978
LIKE A FOREST fire, the flames of the new wave roared across the British rock scene, leaving behind a charred and blackened landscape. A few ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, June 1978
STYX, AS you'll doubtless be aware if you're familiar with the curious musical predilections of our American cousins, are a disgustingly successful five-piece band of ...
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, June 1978
BY DAY, DENNIS DE YOUNG WAS A REGULAR GUY WITH A PONCEY NAME, LACQUERED HAIR, AND A PENCHANT FOR GAUDY FAKE ANTIQUE FURNITURE... BUT BY ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, October 1978
I SHOULD have been prepared for it, being in San Francisco and all that, but I hardly expected that a Boston concert would find me ...
Boston: Don't Look Back (Epic)
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, November 1978
SHE'S THE ONE dreams were invented for, and you've had her. The pursuit was long and arduous, the affair sudden and turbulent. You've gone madly ...
Rod Stewart: Blondes Have More Fun
Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, November 1978
OR BLOATED egos with lots of money get to see more of the world. ...
Foreigner: Live in Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, November 1978
FOREIGNER ARE pretty much a thinking man's Bay City Rollers. ...
Jim Morrison: An American Prayer
Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, December 1978
A BOOK could be written (and has been), about James Douglas Morrison, sometime sex symbol, filmmaker, poet, drunk and rock 'n' roll star, so I ...
Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, February 1979
THIS COULD HAVE BEEN an unholy disaster. A group of Los Angeles session men forming their own band could have been the signal for God-knows-what ...
Toto: A Growth Industry For Modern People
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, March 1979
A TOTO/SANDY ROBERTSON MULTI PLATINUM FINANCIAL READOUT ...
Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, March 1979
DAVID PAICH has the grizzly, rough-hewn features of a particularly underhand heavyweight wrestler. The image is blown by a hugely infectious grin that recurs frequently, ...
Review by Max Bell, NME, March 1979
WILL THESE people never learn? In the time-honoured Hollywood tradition of foisting ambitious super-sessioners upon that large portion of the American public bereft of a ...
Journey: Hold The (Balls On The) Line
Report and Interview by Geoff Barton, Sounds, March 1979
AN ADMIRABLE PHILOSOPHY. BUT WILL IT BE ENOUGH TO POPULARISE THE JOURNEY BRAND OF AMERICAN AOR IN THE UK? GEOFF BARTON SEEMS TO THINK SO ...
Fleetwood Mac: Tusk (Warner Brothers)
Review by Nick Kent, NME, October 1979
ALMOST EVERYONE, barring the inevitable elitist bores blinkered by their own super-hipness, seemed to have a soft spot for Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. In late '77, ...
Fleetwood Mac: Madison Square Garden, NYC
Live Review by Richard Grabel, NME, December 1979
YOU ENTER the stream of bodies pouring through the portholes of Madison Square Garden. You get caught up in the tide. Into the awesome space ...
Dire Straits: Whitla Hall, Belfast
Live Review by Gavin Martin, NME, December 1979
IN THE foyer they flog T-shirts, programmes and all the paraphernalia of a rock band's promotional department bar embossed wellingtons and inflatable underwear. Rumours that ...
Report and Interview by Geoff Barton, Sounds, February 1980
Despite the hit single 'Babe' Styx are still Pomp Rock Supremos, Claims Geoff Barton from the USA ...
Fleetwood Mac: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, June 1980
CROWDS, HOWEVER passive, make me unhappy. As Eli Wallach said on TV (The Magnificent Seven) last Sunday afternoon, "If God didn't want them to be ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, July 1980
THE CLOSE QUARTERS in Nashville Tennessee claims to be America's only rock and roll hotel. Bar's open day and night, drugs no problem, you can ...
Stephen Bishop's Escape From Hollywood
Profile and Interview by Mark Leviton, BAM, January 1981
IN APRIL 1975, an obscure singer-songwriter named Stephen Bishop wrote an article for the small Los Angeles publication Folkscene which stated he'd been writing songs ...
Report and Interview by Dave DiMartino, Creem, September 1981
MIYAKO HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Kerrang!, September 1981
"Young Americans listen when I say/There's people putting us down/I know they say we've gone lazy/To tell you the truth we've seen better days/Don't need ...
Review by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, October 1981
'WHO'S CRYING Now', the hit single off Journey's hit LP, isn't super hip, super deep or even real, real hooky. But it does sound good. ...
Pat Benatar: Hot L Baltimore's (Not Just) For Children: Nice Girl Finishes First & Demands Recount
Report by Richard Riegel, Creem, November 1981
COLUMBIA, MARYLAND, is a "planned community" nestled among scads of functional greenery, midway between Baltimore and Washington D.C. Columbia was laid out according to the ...
Profile by John Tobler, Virgin Yearbook, 1982
A THEORY was circulating during the last two or three years to the effect that the acts dominating the US album charts, and therefore the ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, May 1982
"IT'S THE QUIET ones", as dear departed Ian McDonald once said, "that you shouldn't underestimate". Listening back to my tape after an hour at L'Ermitage ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, May 1982
SEATTLE'S SPACE Needle is the architectural equivalent of the male nipple. Just sticks up there, totally redundant except as an amusing thing to play with ...
REO Speedwagon: Good Trouble (Epic)
Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, October 1982
FROM OUT OF THE STEREOS OF BABES ...
Foreigner: Feels Like The Fifth Time
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, June 1985
THERE ARE TIMES when you truly appreciate Foreigner. For instance, like when Madonna's 'Like A Virgin' comes on the air. A navel she may have, ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Creem, April 1986
IT IS NO COINCIDENCE that supergroup rhymes with gloop. Supergroups are what Rolling Stone puts on the pages it can't flog to Camels and condom ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, December 1989
A CERTAIN self-deprecating irony is evident in the title of Eric Clapton's latest: a journeyman is certainly what he has become in his post-God years. ...
Dire Straits: On Every Street (Vertigo)
Review by Max Bell, Vox, November 1991
AND ON EVERY CD player...they wish. ...
World Party: Bang! (Ensign Chen)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1993
Bang! is Karl Wallinger's Victor Meldrew album. Sequestered in a garret for two years since Goodbye Jumbo, he shuffles blinking into the daylight to enquire, ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1993
BASICALLY, UNCOOL, £12-million-a-year, Tory-endorsing Phil Collins is good on Love, not much cop on Life. So although, for reasons unknown, the totally solo Both Sides ...
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, November 1994
When U2 swapped their Romany drifter look for the PVC strides and comedy shades, there was, after the initial confusion, a general hum of approbation. ...
Blue Nile, The: The Blue Nile: Peace At Last (Warner)
Review by Stuart Maconie, Q, July 1996
AS PROLIFIC AS the Easter Island statue makers and with almost as underworked a PR, The Blue Nile will feature heavily when Arthur C. Clarke's ...
Bon Jovi: Jon Bon Jovi: Destination Anywhere
Review by Carol Clerk, Uncut, July 1997
THE ONLY living American to get the hang of TFI Friday. The hardest-working man in, oh, several industries. The pin-up pop star who dared to ...
Comment by Matt Hanks, Memphis Flyer, November 1997
IN THE SUMMER of '95, Fleetwood Mac found themselves slogging across the country on a dismal rock-and-roll revival tour, sandwiched between (God help them) REO ...
Essay by Debbie Kruger, Weekend Australian, March 1998
GROUPS SUCH AS the Eagles, Chicago and Crosby Stills & Nash sold millions of records here in their heydey – the Eagles still do – ...
Steve Miller Band: The Joker's later work revisited
Retrospective by Gavin Martin, Uncut, July 1998
BY THE time of his 1976 UK chart breakthrough, Fly like An Eagle, Steve Miller's many attributes had been established on the impressive series of ...
Essay by Victoria Sandler, Rock's Backpages, February 2001
The estate of the demised Take That has bequeathed us so much: pretty boy bands aplenty, fashionably camp(er) covers of otherwise hideous unclassics – ‘Could ...
Toto: Steve Lukather: An Interview
Interview by Joe Matera, Mixdown, 2002
THE NAME STEVE LUKATHER is well respected amongst musicians and guitarists alike worldwide. Still in his teens, Lukather joined Boz Scaggs' backing band, then went ...
Journey, Santana: Gregg Rolie's Musical Journey
Interview by Joe Matera, Mixdown, March 2002
WHILE HE MIGHT not be a household name on his own, Gregg Rolie is responsible for co-founding two phenomenally popular, multi-platinum many times over super ...
Darkness, The: The Darkness: SECC, Glasgow
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2004
IN POP, last year's underdog can so easily become this year's one-trick pony. The Darkness ended 2003 as the former rank outsiders who triumphed over ...
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Fight Club
Profile and Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, November 2005
WITH THE swagger of the young Yardbirds and the unstudied panache and casual arrogance of the early Stones, Nick Jago, Robert Been and Peter Hayes ...
Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac: Stevie Nicks
Interview by Graham Reid, New Zealand Herald, February 2006
STEVIE NICKS – the fairy queen singer in Fleetwood Mac – is in a Melbourne hotel room ready to go off to another rehearsal. In ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Anatomy of a rock star
Profile and Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, July 2006
ALMOST EVERYONE that knows Tom Petty for any length of time calls him Tommy. ...
Discography by Steven Rosen, Goldmine, October 2006
ASIA WAS the hybrid formed when ELP and Yes both imploded and sent members scurrying about in search of a new band. ...
Peter Bjorn and John: Bogart's, Cincinnati
Live Review by Steven R Rosen, Harp, December 2007
MAYBE IT'S a Bjorn thing, but the audience at Bogarts in Cincinnati had trouble figuring Peter Bjorn And John out. ...
Guide by Matthew Hamilton, Rock's Backpages, July 2009
Author's Note: I have found that most discussions of AOR get easily sidetracked unless it's made clear which definition of the AOR acronym we're using. ...
Interview by Carl Wiser, Songfacts, October 2009
On songwriting, production and working with stepson Mark Ronson: the Englishman in New York fills in the gaps.
File format: mp3; file size: 34.2mb; Interview length: 37' 21"; sound quality: ***
Journey: Why is Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin'' Back in the Charts?
Comment by Jude Rogers, Guardian, The, November 2009
The 17th bestselling track in the country is the power ballad 'Don't Stop Believin'' from 1981. How did Journey get so popular? ...
Rock of Ages Musical Exhumes '80s Power Ballads
Report by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, February 2011
THERE HAVE BEEN few musical sins committed in the name of rock 'n' roll as egregious as the power ballad. Not really rock and not ...
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