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Melodic Rock Editor Andy Nathan witnesses the melodic revival…
When GRTR! started in late-2002 traditional melodic rock and AOR was still in something of a prolonged hangover from the years of grunge which swept away the genre, and indeed much else in rock music.
At least the thriving scene had stabilised as an underground movement, coalesced around the melodicrock.com website and specialist record labels including MTM and the UK’s Escape and Now and Then, and talented artists like Danny Vaughn and Jeff Scott Soto gamely plugged away but it barely registered in the wider consciousness and was very much seen as the music of the past.
In America the behemoths of AOR’s heyday such as Journey, Styx and REO Speedwagon were still doing good business on the live circuit but there was little chance of them coming to these shores. Indeed that was how I ended up travelling across the pond to festivals for nearly 20 years, in the process falling in love and, more relevant in this context, writing my first ever reviews for the website in 2005.
Something gradually changed over the rest of the decade: bands started coming to the UK for the first time in 25 years or more –Kansas and Styx in 2005, Journey the following year and Night Ranger in 2011. These names were once seen as unthinkable in the UK and even Survivor had shows booked before the untimely death of singer Jimi Jamison leaving just them and Boston as the ones that got away.
The music became more prominent in popular culture – from the ‘Rock of Ages’ musical and film to the exposure of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ to a new generation through the Sopranos and Glee; Toto’s ‘Africa’ becoming a cultural touchstone for millennials; and even REO Speedwagon being used to soundtrack a yogurt commercial.
By the turn of the decade, in an environment where the likes of Def Leppard, Whitesnake and Kiss were enjoying their highest album chart positions and selling bigger venues than for years, it even threatened to be fashionable.
Classic Rock magazine suddenly went overboard on bands like Houston and launched an AOR offshoot and HRH’s themed festivals included one dubbed AOR (which in reality included very little pure AOR!) All this would just be a heritage theme park for eighties rock but for the fact that, for the more discerning, there has been a new and vibrant if smaller scene.
The epicentres of this revival were not America as you might surmise – indeed the poor attendances for a stellar line-up at the Melodicrock fests Andrew MacNeice put on in Chicago demonstrated the underground scene there is small with little demand there beneath the old big names, but instead the UK and Scandinavia.
On home soil, from 2005 a new festival – Firefest – built on the success of the earlier Gods festival, with the additional freedom of not being tied to a label.
For a decade every October Nottingham became the centre of a ‘gathering of the clans’ of fans from across the world, first at Firefest and then with another festival in Rockingham.
The promoters had a remarkable knack of bringing cult bands who had been dormant for many years back to action, sometimes for a short-lived reunion, in other cases a longer-lasting one.
The 2007 show was notable for the reunion after an 11 year absence of FM (pictured), the standard bearers for UK melodic rock who have gone on to enjoy a new lease of life ever since, while White Sister, Romeo’s Daughter, Coney Hatch and many others provided memorable moments that few ever expected to witness.
The epicentre of a new wave of bands was in Scandinavia, and in particular Sweden (where Treat and Europe also proved eighties bands could reform evolve their sound and retain their integrity). Glamsters WigWam reached the final of Eurovision in 2005 but it was youngsters H.E.A.T. who from 2008 on really captured the imagination.
With the subsequent addition of Swedish Idol winner Erik Gronwall and a tougher, more streetwise sound and image they were one of the bands that have enjoyed most commercial success in the UK alongside colourful Finnish glam revivalists Reckless Love. In their varying styles, Eclipse, Crazy Lixx and Work of Art have all produced an impressive body of work, alongside others.
Even members of bands with far heavier origins have formed projects to come out of the closet and indulge their AOR fantasies such as Night Flight Orchestra and Brother Firetribe.
There has been much classic melodic rock to enjoy from those with a longer pedigree, be they supergroups such as W.E.T. or Revolution Saints, or old wine in new bottles, such as Pride of Lions, the vehicle for master songwriter Jim Peterik, and the Defiants, featuring a trio of Danger Danger members.
Many of these releases have been on Frontiers, the Italian record label who have cornered the market and been a mixed blessing. Now large enough to sign big names like Whitesnake and Journey, they keep the scene alive with a dizzying array of releases, though too many have taken a ‘cookie cutter’ approach with a series of studio projects, often featuring the same players and writers, and giving succour to the criticism of lack of originality that has always bedevilled the genre.
For those prepared to look beyond traditional stereotypes, some of the best sounds, from the 2000s in particular, came out of what was probably originally tagged post-grunge. In the wake of Nickelback’s huge commercial success, that sound became steadily more melodic and radio friendly and among those to capitalise were Chris Daughtry‘s eponymous band, 3 Doors Down and Theory of a Deadman. Many fans of the genre have also found still enough melodies to enjoy in the heavier sounds of Alter Bridge, Black Stone Cherry, Shinedown and Halestorm to name but a few.
The UK has thrown up a new wave of domestic melodic rock hopefuls, of which the most consistently good has been Vega (pictured), yet their modern take on melodic rock has somehow failed to make a commercial breakthrough.
In the wider rock context, GRTR!’s second decade has seen greater opportunities for new bands to gain attention, with specialist rock radio stations actually playing new bands and the New Wave of Classic Rock taking off as a movement to support rising acts.
AOR and melodic rock bands have rather struggled to get a slice of that pie, yet there are a number of fine bands that in their own way are extremely melodic – ranging from the Nickelbackian sounds of Stone Broken, the melodic blues rock of King King, Those Damn Crows‘ charismatic widescreen approach, the southern sounds of Robert Jon and the Wreck and Blackberry Smoke, and perhaps above all Cats In Space‘s loving homage to seventies soft rock (pictured).
The older generation of bands seem to have been touring more regularly than ever, although this is part of a backward-looking approach, which features the back catalogue being milked in every way imaginable, be it a rebranded greatest hits, live albums, acoustic albums or albums with an orchestra, and not enough new material, with some honourable exceptions.
The recent tour of Whitesnake and Foreigner illustrated this dilemma: both unquestionably put on a good show, but with only one original member apiece, respectively exhibiting the twin age-related factors of fading vocal prowess in one case and growing infirmity in the other.
While enjoying the opportunity to still see older bands, as the members reach their sixties and seventies, there is a feeling that we should do so before it is too late. However wider factors – post-Brexit red tape, the slow emergence from a world ravaged by Covid, and now rising living costs – are already making touring a less economic proposition.
With the number of new bands coming onto the scene on one level the future is bright. Yet watching a band like Mason Hill combines the encouragement of seeing young bands break through with the worrying observation that most of their fans are old enough to be their parents, and on the healthy blues rock scene the age difference seems even more pronounced. What is worrying is that the one band that has emerged in this genre, stuck around for over a decade, and is a guaranteed live attraction – far greater than the names mentioned here – are a spoof act in Steel Panther.
Traditional guitar based rock music sadly appears to be mainly, if not exclusively, a phenomenon enjoyed by the middle aged and above. And AOR and melodic rock will never return to the mainstream of its glory years from the late seventies to the end of the eighties – yet the last 20 years have been way better than imagined for a genre that was barely clinging on in 2002.
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Album highlights: 2007 PRIDE OF LIONS The Roaring Of Dreams Mon-Fri 09:00-13:00 GMT on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio there is a dedicated sequence for Melodic Rock/AOR music. From January 2023 the regular Featured Album section will include the “Best Of” reviewer selections in this genre 2003-2023. |
More to explore:
The Primer
Still Rocking by David Randall
Singer Songwriter by Pete Whalley
Eclectic by Jason Ritchie
Metal by Brian McGowan
Progressive Rock by Alan Jones
Blues/Blues Rock by Pete Feenstra
Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK
Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions, streamed via Facebook.
In 2023 he signed a recording deal with Sony in Canada and released a new single on 15 September.
Latest session: Sunday 14 April
Check out videos here: https://www.facebook.com/getreadytorockradio
David Randall presents a weekly show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio, Sundays at 22:00 GMT, repeated on Mondays and Fridays), when he invites listeners to ‘Assume The Position’. The show signposts forthcoming gigs and tours and latest additions at getreadytorock.com. First broadcast on 7 April 2024.
UK Blues Broadcaster of the Year (2020 and 2021 Finalist) Pete Feenstra presents his weekly Rock & Blues Show on Tuesday at 19:00 GMT as part of a five hour blues rock marathon “Tuesday is Bluesday at GRTR!”. The show is repeated on Wednesdays at 22:00, Fridays at 20:00). This show was first broadcast 2 April 2024.
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Power Plays w/c 15 April 2024
ENMY The Ledge (FiXT)
KAROBELA Get Hard (indie)
KATH & THE KICKS Neptune (indie)
THE BEE TELLERS River Poem (Black Sand Records)
LAUREN FREEBIRD Like A Bomb (indie)
Featured Albums w/c 15 April 2024
09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023
14:00-16:00 KATARINA PEJAK – Pearls On A String (Ruf Records)
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