Raised on Radio
Power Ballads, Cocaine and Payola: The AOR Glory Years 1976-1986
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Raised on Radio
Narrated by:
Eric Jason Martin
Buy Now for £17.94
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Narrated by:
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Eric Jason Martin
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By:
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Paul Rees
About this listen
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.©2026 Paul Rees (P)2026 Little, Brown Book Group Limited
Critic reviews
Crammed with personal, often priceless insights about cut-throat life in the fast lane
A keen analysis of a particularly insane period in rock history . . . providing a shedload of grisly detail along the way. Pretty much every quote is pure gold, and often bitchy as hell
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