“Big Four” of AOR format.

Boston, Journey, Heart, Foreigner

ELP, Yes, Rush, fourth is tougher.

maybe Jethro Tull?

As much as I love Boston's first album, I'd replace them with Styx in that grouping. Kansas under consideration too - they had some stellar albums and deep tracks.

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Boston, Journey, Heart, Foreigner

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ELP, Yes, Rush

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Styx... Kansas

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It's Beatles Stones Zep Eagles

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It's Beatles Stones Zep Eagles

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I think this is a definitional issue. If we consider a very broad category of the album "era", then I think we have to pull in the prog/progish acts (particularly the Floyd and Rush), Zeppelin, the Eagles, etc.

While Pet Sounds and Sergeant Pepper certainly facilitated the proliferation of so-called "concept" albums due to their critical and commercial success, I've never heard The Beach Boys, the Stones or The Beatles referred to as "AOR" before this thread. Maybe I missed a memo.

Even the term "AOR" (however meaningless it is relative to similar marketing concepts like "prog rock", "hair metal" or "grunge" so the suits can sell something they don't understand) is probably polarizing to a degree based on when you started listening to rock music on the radio. Boomers probably do consider Zeppelin AOR, but Gen Xers are more likely to lump them more with The Who and start the discussion of AOR with acts like Styx, Kansas, and The Eagles, the whole "corporate rock" movement as beginning after a lot of those huge bands from the late 60s/early 70s were already established, although obviously there is some overlap. I mean, technically, the Rolling Stones are still a going concern in 2022. :letthatsinkin:

If you're talking pretty much the 70s and who consistently put out the best albums in that era, Steely Dan.

If you're talking about 4 bands from that era that have been played to death on classic rock stations for the last 50 years...The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, and maybe Boston or Aerosmith.