In Praise of Moody Midtempo AOR

I kinda get this vibe from the two big Robert Cray songs, minus the synths

a kind of masculine grieving from someone who can’t emote through a full-on ballad and so maintains the mid-tempo and the rock groove

brilliant description

figured Iggy pop would have one of these but can't quite find it - cry for love is really close but probably a bit too uptempo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI9vzh7CZIw

if you ran the numbers I also reckon a lot of these would feature some variation on Am-F-Am-F chord progression in the verses (is that i-IV?)

Fleetwood Mac - Mystified
Richard & Linda Thompson - Walking on a Wire
Most of Springsteen's "Tunnel of Love"

^ Tunnel is great but might be a little too...romantic? And the singles are uptempo

Bruce Hornsby - mandolin rain

Iggy's The Passenger fits in spirit but it's a little too rocking. Maybe something from The Idiot?

That description posted above is indeed a pretty brilliant encapsulation of this ethos!

Certainly female equivalents are fewer and far between, though I did post that Motels song "Only the Lonely," which fits perfectly. And "Self Control."

bruce’s voice is maybe a little too ragged for this thread, but “i’m on fire” and “one step up” totally fit imo

Xxxp

I was thinking “Tougher Than the Rest” and “One Step Up” but I agree there are some jumpier numbers that don’t fit.

Has anyone posted this article on AOR?

https://www.loudersound.com/features/inside-aor-the-most-under-appreciated-sub-genre-of-all-time

Icehouse's whole shtick was something akin to this, but having set out from the direction of new wave/synth pop rather than more authentic manly rock strains (LOL) they may be ever so slightly too, er, icy here. Moodiness, synths and frequent saxophone though...

eg.
Don't Believe Any More
Hey Little Girl
No Promises

They're massively indebted to Roxy Music, who imo don't really fit. *Too* cold and/romantic, at least the later stuff that fits closest.

does Journey – Who's Crying Now qualify?

― real muthaphuckkin jeez (crüt), Wednesday, December 2, 2020 3:49 PM (three days ago)

Running With the Night by Lionel Ritchie?

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, December 2, 2020 3:52 PM (three days ago)

Wow, these are the first 2 songs I thought of after reading the title (and they are listed back-to-back, nice)!

This thread has provided me with the linguistics to understand a style of pop/rock that has gradually taken over a chunk of my listening, especially amidst the pandemic. There's very specific building blocks that I just love:

-Sure, Moody Mid-tempo AOR is not *fast*, but there's still a rhythmic propulsion there

-The verses (and maybe the chorus) feature minor keys but not in a 'sad' way;

-the choruses don't get too intense. Hell, they sometimes feel more like a *pre*-chorus, such as Stevie Wonder's "Go Home", or Bardeux's "When We Kiss" (a song that sounds like what would have happened if Leonard Cohen departed the "I'm Your Man" sessions a little early one evening, then his backup singers decided to record a quickie rap pastiche over one of the backing tracks)

-the cold(ish) vocals involve less longing or serious emoting then storytelling, or expressions of disappointment/indifference

-the guitar solos fall more in line with the "Who's Crying Now" outro lead (which may have secretly influenced like 1/3 of the MMOAR universe from '83 to '88)

-the drums and bass are very 'in the pocket', not too bashy/thrashy

-and this might my favorite feature: they end with a fade-out instead of an abrupt close, because Moody Midtempo AOR is hypnotically comforting - you *need* that fade away, or it's too emotionally jarring have it all suddenly stop. You would be left asking "Where'd the music go - there has to be another verse, right?" It's the musical equiv of the 'vibe' movie that theaters would show at midnight, where the plot is less important than the character interactions.

This type of tunes is pretty much Chris Rea's style.

don't know him really, any particular songs?

great post pre-funk

Yeah, love the case for the fade-out there.

John Waite's "Missing You" is a fun version of this, with the unreliable narrator having written an AOR song and hired the backup singers, and then he realizes how much he really does miss his woman as the background singers stick to their charts and keep doing their job.

Certainly female equivalents are fewer and far between

that's interesting - I think Concrete Blonde played in this space a bit? Like this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlg91FG9m5Y

but as suggested somewhere above the most potent words/music alchemy with this kind of track comes from the music being allied to a kind of "keeping a lid on my emotions but you can tell I'm suffering" masculine resolve

don't know him really, any particular songs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXm_1lWwD8Y

The Road to Hell is the tune I first heard by him back in the 90s. Similar territory to like some Dire Straits, but more weary voice and more lush soft rock backing at times. Never really hear much more until Youtube and by comments seems that Chris Rea is fairly popular in Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUUdQfnshJ4

ok wow the road to hell and especially that video gets to the core of this thread more than anything I've seen

Always wondered which came first: Rea’s “The Road to Hell” or Leonard Cohen’s “The Future” (with Dylan’s “Things Have Changed” coming later but similar too).

I always get Chris Rea confused with Chris Stamey. Probably because they both have the first name "Chris."

yeah that's a tough one, very uncommon name

I gather he's also a different person than Chris deBurgh? (Does "Don't Pay the Ferryman" fit this?)

Actually, the title track to Chris Stamey's It's Alright, from 1987, might fit this genre.

Ha, holy shit, I now remember hearing "The Road to Hell" in 1989 but don't think I've heard it since then. Not sure if I ever knew who it was by.

It might have just merged with "The Future" in my memory.

I think Chris Rea has a cool singing voice. He does some love songs kinda like later period Joe Cocker, who has some tunes that sound like they would fit this thread. Their singing voices have that gravitas just in the growl.

Don't Pay the Ferryman is like cocaine tempo, maybe 145 bpm?

Yeah, ha, I didn't listen just before posting.

Holy shit, that Chris Rea song is totally like Dire Straits covering "The Future."

It was released three years earlier, apparently.

Chris Rea has recently decided to form a band with Dire Straits; they're going to be called...

One of the truly great things about being middle-aged is being able to tell shit jokes with absolute impunity.

haha

After all these years, I finally learn it's pronounced "Ree Ahh", and not "Ray."

Plop of Life

I keep thinking an 80s Rush song should fit but Rush might be too distinctive, their inherent Rush-ness

"Subdivisions" kinda fits? But the message of the song is too apparent, too high school obviously, moody midtemp AOR more adult

I suggested "Limelight" upthread but I'm not sure it does fit with the direction the thread has gone in.

The closest might be something like Middletown Dreams from power windows.

yeah PW is probably the closest...Rush ultimately are too wholesome for this tbh

Surprised to see no mention of this, which is the moody midtempo AOR track that other moody midtempo AOR tracks refer to as The Guv'nor.

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

If we were to split this into sub-genres, this would be Moody Power Pop AOR:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SCzVEUlqqA

Did anyone cover Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy" between 1978 and 1988?

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

driver’s seat definitely counts

Art bell played a lot of this stuff as bumper music

BOC was mentioned upthread and I just remembered the one that should be on this: "Shooting Shark"

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

also -- jeeeeeez how could I have forgotten Mike + the Mechanics - "Silent Running" a classic of the genre

some of my favourites:

talk talk - living in another world
chris isaak - wicked game
robert palmer - you are in my system
pat benatar - love is a battlefield
the fixx - saved by zero