MOR/AOR/Arena Rock Albums 1983-85

A lot of classics on here, but c'mon, how could I not vote for Grace Under Pressure?

I have (proudly) not heard a single note of any of these

I find that hard to believe unless you are a) born yesterday or b) do not have ears.

i went with love at first sting. kind of the perfect 80's hard rock album.

Wow, I can't imagine! Who will be the first to pop Stevie's AOR cherry, and with which album?

Asia - Astra 85

I used to put "Go" on in my boombox and jump a little ramp I made on my bike, trying to time it up with the guitar breakdown in the song's middle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gKFk5kTopI

bands that are really entertaining to listen to that most people only remember from one or two mtv hits: twister sister and quiet riot. even later quiet riot albums are entertaining. if you like catchy hard rock records. all 80's twisted sister albums have gems on them. actually this is true for ratt too. their post-out of the cellar stuff is lotsa fun.

perfect strangers has two of the greatest side-opening tracks of any hard rock album, by the way. um, you know, knocking at your back door and perfect strangers. but the whole album never did a lot for me.

Scorpions announced this week that they're breaking up, but not before a final 3 year tour! I think I need to see that, especially if they dip into their 70s albums. I am enjoying Love At First Sting this week a lot too.

Voted Dokken "Tooth & Nail"

Shaken 'n' Stirred is an underrated Plant album.

Building The Perfect Beast

I have (proudly) not heard a single note of any of these

Oh come on.

Voting Bryan Adams's best album, over Aerosmith's last great album. (The Loverboy, Foreigner, and Billy Squier albums up there are past their peaks.)

Curious why you left off Mellencamp (who would've got my vote, easy) and Huey Lewis (who would've been a real contender), though.

billy idol all the way

i went with love at first sting. kind of the perfect 80's hard rock album.

― scott seward, Saturday, January 30, 2010 12:07 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

for a brief confused instant I thought Scott was saying he voted for The Dream Of The Blue Turtles.

afterburner

I'm really curious about Done With Mirrors now. xhuck's not the first person to rep for it.

That's actually my vote too although I don't quite get these polls, i.e., how the noms were chosen. In any event, who out there has heard Chicagoland's The Kind who hit semi-big with "Loved By You?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T3H72_HSi4

It's good. especially if you like olde schoole aerosmith. if you prefer later bloated endless anthem/ballad everything but the kitchen sink production aerosmith...well, it isn't that.

x-post

xpost Wow that was an awful song! Waaay worse than I remembered it (and I remembered it being pretty bad so...).

Anyhoo this is a good blog (when he's not blathering on about non-music stuff) that nicely gets at the mild confusion over AOR/new wave/power pop:

http://hesawhore.blogspot.com/

I think Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers is pretty remarkable for a version of a band coming back together a decade later after completely imploding upon itself. One thing I think that helps it out is that they didn't go for any modern 80s hard rock production. It is pretty dry sounding, none of the huge reverb that was all over the drums at that time. I think it is really on par with the classic early 70s albums, if not a bit more consistent as there isn't that oddball tune like that goofy country track on In Rock or Who Do We Think We Are.

The record that seems to be missing is Synchronicity by the Police, as while they came up as new wave interlopers, they were pretty much the biggest band in a world for a year or so when that album was out. All good though, as it isn't my list and would possibly dominate in popularity on such a poll.

As a complete album on this list, I would go with Perfect Strangers and the self titled Genesis album. Like many I got completely sick of Phil Collins within the mid-80s as that dude was like everywhere, but 20 years has kind of cured the overexposure and now when I hear those Genesis or key solo tracks, I really dig them again. This particular Genesis record is kind of dark in a way (for Phil Collins). The music is really catchy and infectious, but there is a layer of darkness around them, which is also true of some of Collins solo tunes. You know if Bono or Springsteen did a tune called Illegal Alien, it would not be that bouncy. Very odd, but it works. I really like Home by the Sea. The live version they used to show where Phil Collins and Chester Thompson would do that big dual drum section I thought was excellent.

xhuck's not the first person to rep for it.

Actually, it's possible I was the first person to rep for it. But that was a long, long time ago (like, when it came out, and everybody else ignored it.)

I chose to leave off Mellencamp (and also The Police, U2 and Tom Petty) because like Springsteen, they never really fell out of critical favor, and definitely weren't forgotten like a lot of the albums in the poll. They probably would have dominated pretty heavily, so I think this way it stays more interesting. That said I haven't heard those Mellencamp albums in full in over 20 years, it's time to revisit.

I re-listened to The Works today, and I still don't buy that it's a comeback from Hot Space. The songs mainly aren't nearly as good, though "Machines (Or Back To Humans)" is kind of awesome in a weird way. Overall I'm not feelin it.

In the middle of '85, U2 was my favorite band, but Rush was still up there. I was really excited when Power Windows came out, and thought it was the best thing they ever did at the time. Later I felt it was a bit too sterile. I'll be giving that and Grace another listen.

U2 was my favorite band, but Rush was still up there

This was me all through high school, with a little Cure and Depeche Mode on the side.

No Jacket Required, bitches.

(honorable mention to billy idol, rush, and scorpions)

most of these acts were an album past their prime tbh

power windows duhh

I've become a huge Rush fan in the last few years (and I spin "Perfect Strangers" all the time). But it's Metal Health that meant the most to me at the time. Its historical significance as the first #1 metal album should not be overlooked either.

Thunderbird, Love's a Bitch, and Slick Black Cadillac are every bit as worthwhile to me as the two mega-singles.

Yeah, Quiet Riot is interesting in that despite having a great guitarist in Randy Rhoads in their late 70s incarnation, they sucked. But Metal Health is great, even if Kevin DuBrow was the most punchable lead singer in metal. By Condition Critical they went back to sucking again. I remember checking that album out from my high school library and being damn glad I didn't spend money on it. I always think of Twisted Sister along with them, except TS had several solid albums. I'll soon by checking out last year's double CD reissue of Stay Hungry. Any fans of early Bon Jovi?

Going with "The Works" here. Queen's 1984-1991 work is largely a bit underrated. They did a lot of great stuff then, and the quality of the albums was consistently high every time around. I'd rank "The Works" ahead of anything else they did between "A Day At The Races" in 1976 and "Innuendo" in 1991.

Parts of Grace Under Pressure are almost like live drum and bass or something.

Now that's pretty much my least favourite Rush album, at least from before they became an ordinary hard rock band in the 90s.

i've heard like one of these albums and wish i owned at least half of them

I don't think Grace Under Pressure is as good as the five previous albums but it has great moments. I still think it was an interesting experiment in using their instrumental virtuosity to trigger live electronics. "Distant Early Warning" is one of their best songs.

While I can't claim to have never heard a note of any of these, I did stop listening to commercial rock radio about the time punk happened. And I'm lolold, so didn't grow up with pop metal (or most of this stuff, really) at all. I think I still own Dire Straits, and maybe the Billy Idol. Record I'd probably be most likely to choose today: Fogerty. Maybe I still own that, too.

I did hear INXS' "What You Need" in a thrift store the other day for the first time in ages, and was kinda diggin' it.

i've heard like one of these albums and wish i owned at least half of them

― PLIES! PLIES! PLIES! PLIES! PLIES! (some dude)

I have at one point or another owned 41 of these, and think I still have around 20 on cassette or cd. Formative music in formative years.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted sting only because nothing else jumped out and screamed pick me --

Afterburner over Building the Perfect Beast, with lots of soft spots for albums I've not heard in two decades.

Saw Rush on both GUP and PW tours and good grief they were tremendous.

May vote for Deep Purple just for the title song alone.

Poll closes in less than an hour. I downloaded last year's double disc reissue of Stay Hungry in flac, and it sounds like ass, and super quiet. Who screws up a lossless rip? I'm picking it up used at Reckless on my run home from work, and will have it playing when I check out the results.

Great thread.

I was a latch-key kid, and this was the golden era of MTV so I was exposed to almost everything on this list.

What's crazy is that between my family (mom, dad, sisters and me), we owned 19 of these albums on either LP,CS,CD. Pretty sure Brothers In Arms and Dream Of The Blue Turtles were my dad's first CDs.

Anyways, I voted "Robert Plant - The Principle Of Moments 83" on the strengths of "In The Mood" and "Big Log" which were both pretty surreal and fuzzy experiments in pop by a dude with nothing to prove. Both songs still hold up really well... I have them on a playlist for road trips.

but.............. if I were to pick one song off all of these that I'd still rep for, it's gotta be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngC187sQZD8

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Anyways, I voted "Robert Plant - The Principle Of Moments 83" on the strengths of "In The Mood" and "Big Log" which were both pretty surreal and fuzzy experiments in pop by a dude with nothing to prove

Yup! I said so in the Plant solo thread. He'd already conquered the world, so why not experiment with the sounds of the times? Pretty good experiments too.

Paltry show of votes. I somehow missed Rebel Yell being on this list and probably would have voted for that over Quiet Riot now that I think of it.

Wow, Men At Work - Cargo at #2? I had that album, but I don't remember anything from it. I guess I need to hear it again.

Cargo is actually pretty good. First record I bought on release day - loved Business As Usual (my first LP purchased with my own money) and the follow-up came so quick I was just primed for it. Sadly, their next record, Two Hearts, is kind of crap.

list compares v. favorably to the "mainstream rock albums of the 2000s" poll i saw recently

Cargo has their two best singles ("It's a Mistake," "Overkill").

So back to Twisted Sister. Dee Snider was such a great frontman -- his hilarious drag queen look in the classic videos, his ability to inject humor and fun into the music without being ironic, and his eloquent defense of metal at the PMRC hearings.

Is it even possible for another Dee to exist in 2010? Also, with TS, Quiet Riot, Def Leppard, Van Halen, Ratt, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Poison, etc. selling millions of albums in 83-87, I'm kind of surprised there weren't a lot more bands like them. Or maybe there were, particularly bubbling out of L.A. like a catchy case of crabs, but not many others that were very good.

Steve Shasta -- I agree with your assessment of the Robert Plant albums as "surreal, fuzzy experiments." I remember first hearing cuts from his solo debut in 1982 and thinking I hadn't heard anything like it before. I got my hands on the flac of the remastered box set that came out a couple years ago, and it sounds great. Shaken 'n' Stirred has aged well, like an abstract painting with occasionally bright colored pop hooks nestled in it. I've never heard Now and Zen, and will listen later today.

Is it even possible for another Dee to exist in 2010?

http://alntv.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/lady_gaga_rolling_stone_magazine.jpg

The only albums from this list that I ever owned were Brothers in Arms and Listen Like Thieves, but I also heard a fair bit from Dream of the Blue Turtles because of being around people who had it and the hits getting lots of airplay. Actually if I was to go out and pick up one of these now, I'd probably get the Sting, because I do remember liking some of those songs.

Wow, Now and Zen is just awful. AMG is totally on crack, best solo album my ass. I never bothered with albums from 88-90 by others like Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Kate Bush, etc. at the time because this is what I expected -- too many cheesy background vocals and atmospheric sound design resulting in badly dated piles of tuneless mush.

So Electric Light Orchestra, Journey and Yes were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last Friday. Performances won't air until next month, but here's audience footage:

Dhani Harrison inducts ELO
https://youtu.be/yfu-LPaCONo
https://youtu.be/t1NNRQGj6rg

Chuck Berry tribute/Evil Woman
https://youtu.be/1Ur23czb3pk

Mr. Blue Sky
https://youtu.be/Pscx2vG2p-s

A few days before AXS TV showed a tribute band, Strange Magic. It wasn't too bad, though they need a new drummer.
https://youtu.be/ClUe8voqeg8

I was listening to the expanded double-album version of Secret Messages, but without the never released "Beatles Forever" track. Not too bad when I hear the missing tracks in the intended order.

Wow, Now and Zen is just awful. AMG is totally on crack, best solo album my ass.

rong rong rong