Raised on Radio

Power Ballads, Cocaine & Payola – the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986

By: Paul Rees

Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin

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 traveled 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.

History!

Listening to an oral history can be tricky. The reader did a good job of not rushing. And speaking clearly.

Many bands ignored

Too many mentions of Steve Lucather and looked more like homage to the band Toto in my view. The writing style at times lost me in mid paragraph- which band member is speaking and assumes the reader knows the name of all band members? I worked in AOR radio during that period and there were so many oversights and names forgotten. This book to me was a huge disappointment. Interesting in spots but mostly frustrating for someone in the USA working in radio, who was living it here.

Great Story

Loved this, I would have liked another hour so as to include more AOR bands.

Annoying Format

Format is very annoying for an audiobook. The constant jumping back and forth between quotes requires a playbook to keep up with who's speaking.

Terrible as an audio book !

Content isn’t the problem, but the presentation as an audio book is terrible.

It’s a non stop, never ending sequence of quotes followed by attribution to who made the statement. The entire book is nothing but individual quotes !

Might work as a hardback in your hands, but this book is absolutely TERRIBLE as an audio book, easily the worst I’ve ever purchased.

AVOID !!!