Your way in
Arena rock / AOR 1976
Hard rock polished for stadiums and FM radio: huge choruses, keyboards and glossy production.
- Heaviness
- 4
- Speed
- 5
- Melody
- 10
- Where from
- USA
- Tempo
- 100-130 bpm
- Song length
- 3.5-5 min
- Written about
- Love, Perseverance, The road, Ambition, stated without irony
- Vocals
- Sung
Why this one
| You said | Arena rock / AOR | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singing When someone is singing, what should come out? | clean | 100% | ×3 |
| There, but not the point How much weight do you want behind it? | 4 out of 10 | 90% | ×2 |
| A steady walk What pace? | 5 out of 10 | 100% | ×2 |
| The beginnings Does it matter when it was made? | 1976 | 72% | ×1 |
| Anger at something real What should the words be about? | Love, Perseverance, The road, Ambition, stated without irony | 50% | ×1 |
| Yes. A proper melody. Do you want a tune you could hum afterwards? | 10 out of 10 | 100% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 90% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 6 answers you gave, weighted vocals 3, heaviness 2, pace 2, era 1, about 1, melody 1 out of 10. Arena rock / AOR ties with the next, and won on being the broader of the two. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1Start one step outside
- 2The one to put on first
Boston, Boston 1976
Boston - More Than a Feeling. Recorded almost entirely in an MIT engineer's basement.
- 3Then
- 4Then
- 5Then
The first is the entry point for Hard rock, one step outside, so the second record has something to be heard against. After it come Arena rock / AOR's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Progressive rock 90%
Rock with classical ambitions: odd meters, twenty-minute suites, mellotron. The direct foundation of progressive metal.
4 steps from Arena rock / AOR, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Progressive rock -
Proto-metal 85%
The heavy bands from before the term existed: over-amplified acid rock, already built around the riff.
On the other branch of the tree entirely, and 6 steps from Arena rock / AOR.
The way into Proto-metal
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- Singing put 54 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Black metal, Death metal, Post-hardcore. Worth 3 of 10.
- The beginnings put 67 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Folk metal, Metalcore, Nu metal. Worth 1 of 10.
- Anger at something real put 108 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Alternative rock, Black metal, Blues rock. Worth 1 of 10.
- Yes. A proper melody. put 12 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Grindcore, Brutal death metal, Cybergrind. Worth 1 of 10.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.