Ed. Note: Here's another story that, sadly, hasn't dated as much as we'd all like. The album rock bands of the '70s keep reuniting and people keep paying to see them. And now, this virulent disease has infected formerly rebellious bands of the '80s, from the Go-Go's to Bad Religion. While it's sometimes comforting to tell yourself that a favorite band of your youth "still has it," whatever they have is rarely as fulfilling as their original output. Perhaps VH1 and its nostalgia porn is partly to blame, but overall I think most people (even rockers) prefer to live in the past rather than find something new. Even more sad, that philosophy apparently also goes for a lot of new bands today.

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Album Oriented Rock died–for me, anyway–in 1981 at an outdoor concert by the ultimate supergroup of our age, Asia.

I didn’t see it coming, though. At the time, I was firmly convinced that this was rock ’n’ roll as it was meant to be. Forget Jerry Lee Lewis, James Brown, Little Richard. Hell, put Elvis right up there on the shelf with ’em. They were musty has-beens of little consequence compared to the majesty and might of our rock heroes: Styx. Alan Parsons Project. Electric Light Orchestra. Now these were artists, taking an antiquated music form into whole new realms of creativity. It was a heady time of experimentation: violins, organs, synthesizers, entire bloody orchestras. Rock operas. These weren't just rock stars–these were music visionaries!

It was the Golden Age of Album Oriented Rock. AOR had vanquished Top 40. It had survived Disco. It had withstood Punk. And now, armed with Young Turks like Aldo Nova, Triumph, and (by God!) Rush, we were going to rock progressively to the next millennium. Nothing could stand in our way. Except…

That night, something strange happened. There, right in the middle of Carl Palmer's 20-minute drum solo (which was following right on the heels of Geoff Downes' 15-minute synthesizer solo), I noticed something. As my friends sneaked sips of Stroh's from plastic cups, holding their Bics aloft in salute to the august ex-ELP drummer–with a million dollars' worth of laser lights blasting in every direction–I realized I was … bored. Even at this height of progressive rock ecstasy, watching living legends reproduce their studio album note for note without a single unfamiliar sound or melody, I felt something was missing: passion. It was the beginning of the end of my album rock worship.

As the ’80s progressed into the MTV era, so too did the tide of radio listenership change, drifting from format to format. There was new wave (ABC, Flock of Seagulls), all hits (kind of like Top 40, but with more variety), urban contemporary (all manner of doo-wop, hip-hop, and quiet storm), hair metal (Great White, Poison), adult contemporary (Peter Gabriel, Tori Amos) and lately, commercial alternative or "modern" rock (Green Day, Soundgarden). With its haughty musical pretensions, repetitive "conceptual" lyrics, silly posturing, and epic songs that you simply could not dance to, album rock was as good as dead.

But it didn't die. Oh no. It's merely been in stasis. And now it’s reanimating itself, lumbering back to the stage with Frankensteinian insistence.

Over the last few years, you could have seen live concerts by Boston, Chicago, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, and Fleetwood Mac (not to mention "lite rock" practitioners like America and Christopher Cross). One summer, an album rock summit of titans gathered when Kansas, Blue Oyster Cult, Alan Parsons Project, and Foreigner appeared all on one stage. And, most amazingly, you can now buy a new CD by "ELO II"–as well as new records by Kansas, Chicago, and Jefferson Starship.

How did this unholy resurrection come to be?

THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Protected by the warm embrace of "classic rock" stations, album rock subsisted through the late ’80s and ’90s on FM radio with a playlist as old as the hills (sometimes including bands like Guns N’ Roses). But while MTV and its marketing minions targeted just about every format except album rock, a funny thing happened. A new breed of rock bands came along influenced not by punk or funk or R.E.M., but by those has-been album rockers.

Pearl Jam. Stone Temple Pilots. Live. Although deemed "alternative" by MTV, they nonetheless show all the hallmarks of prime album rock–anthemic topics, operatic singing, blow-out-the-stops guitar solos. And don’t think that the originators of the form haven’t been paying attention.

"I’ve noticed a lot of the new groups that are doing well now are playing a type of music that originated in the late ’60s and early ’70s–bands like Soul Asylum, Hootie and the Blowfish, Stone Temple Pilots," says Neal Doughty, keyboardist and a founding member of album rock royalty REO Speedwagon. "They’re doing stuff that sounds a lot like what we were doing 20 years ago. And I think that has caused younger people to turn their attention toward where all this came from in the first place."

Indeed, although REO hasn’t released a new album in five years, its yearly summer tours have consistently drawn younger crowds. "The majority of our audience is under 30, and many of them are even under 20," says Doughty. Could it be that early exposure to "Ridin’ the Storm Out" and "Keep On Loving You" has ingrained in kids an urge to see the bands that inspired their current faves? Or might it also be that these young rock fans were influenced by something even closer to home–their parents?

"That’s something that didn’t happen so much back in the ’60s–you didn’t see your parents coming to the same concert you did," remarks Doughty. "Our original fans, who are now in their 40s, are still showing up. But now we see parents and their kids out there at the same time, rocking together.

"But we don’t have a mosh pit and stage diving and stuff like that," he assures. "It’s safe for somebody in their 40s to come to one of our shows."

Next: Power Ballads—The Last Resort

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