Unfashionable Music Alert

Sometimes, especially when you are stuck in traffic in Glasgow, as I was the other day, something noisy and upbeat is the only thing that will do.

AOR, Melodic Rock, whatever you want to call it has never been fashionable, but scratch the surface and you will find a lot of people admitting to listening as a "guilty pleasure". Why feel guilty about it? There is as much dross as any other genre but there are some great records both old and new waiting for you to sing along.

When The X Factor had a moment with Don't Stop Believing a few years ago (why it wasn't the winners single that year I don't know),  the Journey original shot up the charts. While Journey are far from my favourite band the song has most streamed/downloaded song status on many portals and in lots of countries.

Who should you be listening to and where do you find out about it?

Work Of Art. Four albums into their career, they have yet to produce anything below an 8 out of 10 record. Play this loud

 

Radioactive. I did a whole post on Tommy Denander a while ago. His name is a mark of quality and you should buy anything he is on. The Radioactive albums are his best though.

A recent album from a new band The Defiants, 'Zokusho' has been hailed as album of the year for 2019 in many quarters.

Terry Brock has appeared on some great albums, solo, with Strangeways and as a guest artist. This is one of his best songs.

Hopefully that has whetted your appetite so where can you learn more? Best magazine by far is Fireworks. There is usually a free digital copy to be had of a back issue here, so give it a try.

Rob Evan's AOR Underground appears in Powerplay magazine, which is a bit more heavy metal focused than Fireworks but still worth a read. He is also on Facebook here.

Melodic Rock, run from Australia by Andrew McNeice is the best online portal, lots of reviews and news.

And that is AOR/Melodic Rock. Way more to it than Journey, Toto, or Giant. If you like a good tune then this is the genre for you, and one that gets a lot of play on the iPod, especially in the car.

Keep right on 'til the end of the year.

2019 has come and gone, and with it music releases that I found and missed. As usual this is about the stuff I picked up on this year rather then what was actually released in 2019. 

Lonely Robot: John Mitchell's trilogy concluded this year with 'Under Stars' following Please Come Home (2015) and The Big Dream (2017). If you like updated traditional style Prog Rock then this is for you. Good tunes, good playing and enough "modern" to stand apart from the 70s pastiches.

Jazz has had a bit of an off year for me. With much of Jazz Journal's website disappearing behind a paywall, and off cuts of Miles and Coltrane being touted as earth shattering events I'm struggling to find much to recommend. However The Comet is Coming. 

Work Of Art are an AOR/Melodic Rock group who in a parallel universe are the biggest band in the world. While still not quite equaling the highs of second album 'In Progress' 'Exhibits' is still the best of a cracking year of releases from genre leading label Frontiers. I'm going to be talking in detail about this unfashionable corner of music soon so will save some more suggestions for then.

I've done a couple of round ups of what I was listening to as the year went on, in September and March. My views remain pretty much unchanged on those records, although I may be a little less harsh on the Miles Davis disc having listened some more, still not a classic though. I did a review of the Americana world, which has had a classic year HERE. Visit my colleagues Jonathan and Helen's opinions on 2019 as well, clearly more music to pick up on in 2020. In fact read the whole of Americana UK from top to bottom.

One artist I have rather lost track of this year is Bill Nelson. His new website is slow to load, hard to navigate and thus I have largely stopped visiting. The forum is not the lively place it once was, and judging by the number of off topic posts those who do post are not finding anything to discuss in Bill's recent work.

Thanks for continuing to read my ramblings. The first couple of months topics are already planned, so let's see whats out there...