Raised on Radio

£25.00

There is no form of American-made music that has been as critically derided, or shunned, as AOR. The blues, punk, hip-hop, alt-rock, country-rock, R&B, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll and soul. All are canonised. But the plain fact is, AOR artists were responsible for some of the hugest selling and timeless records of the era. Five bands stand tall as AOR’s leading lights: Journey, Boston, Foreigner, Toto and REO Speedwagon. Between them, they have to date sold over 335 million records worldwide. Aside from these five bands, there is then a second tier of multi-platinum AOR acts and including the likes of Styx, Survivor, Pat Benatar, Heart, Kansas, Bryan Adams, Loverboy, Night Ranger, Billy Squier and more. During the period covering 1976-1986, AOR was inarguably the music of the American heartland. This is the definitive music history of AOR, told through some of the genre’s finest contributors.

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Description

A massively entertaining oral biography of the golden era of critically derided yet monumentally popular radio rock, when Journey, Boston, REO Speedwagon, Toto, and more ruled the airwaves.

Paul Rees’s Raised on Radio is, remarkably, the first biography of AOR (‘Album-Oriented Rock’), critically derided at the time but massively popular during its 1976-1986 heyday when artists such as Journey, Boston, Foreigner, Toto, REO Speedwagon, Heart, Pat Benatar, Bryan Adams, and Styx sold many millions of albums and toured stadiums. Today, those very same songs are streaming in record numbers and many of the artists continue to play to sellout audiences around the world. They may have been dismissed at the time as terminally uncool by elitist rock critics in thrall to punk and new wave, but their music was, and is still, the soundtrack to so many people’s lives.

For better or worse, AOR’s prime movers lived life in the fast lane. Cocaine use was rampant, egos were unchecked, and intra-band fighting became par for the course. What’s more, their influence stretches across generations and through the fabric of popular American music. AOR invented the power ballad, and the sound of it has travelled on through hair metal, pop rock, and right up to Taylor Swift.

Raised on Radio is a stadium-sized, massively entertaining oral and pop-cultural history in the bestselling tradition of Meet Me in the Bathroom, Nothin’ But a Good Time, and Please Kill Me, capturing a time and place that was as big, booming, and unabashed as the music that provided its soundtrack.

Additional information

Weight 740 g
Dimensions 23.8 × 16 × 5 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback
Pages

528
Language

English
Edition
Dewey

781.6609045 (edition:23)
Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

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