What defines the sound of AOR?

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 rushfan4 wrote:

Interestingly enough, I picked up an issue of Classic Rock Presents AOR (Issue 5 from October 2011) and I finally got around to starting to read it this morning.  Not sure if it is a case of rewriting history or not, but they seem to indicate that bands like Def Leppard, Motley Crue, KISS, and Bon Jovi are AOR.  I suppose that I can see the connection, but these bands were mostly considered to be hair metal or glam metal back in the day.  I don't know that I would have necessarily included these bands under the AOR umbrella, but it does make a certain sense to me as my music collection consists of as much of these type bands as it does the traditionally thought of AOR bands like Foreigner, Asia, Journey, Toto, Night Ranger, etc...  Definitely one of my favorite genres, if not my favorite. 

I recently watched on youtube a documentary giving an insight into the clash between glam metal and thrash metal back in the eighties. I didn't know there was so much hate from thrashers towards glam metal back in those days. Still today, when you discuss with fans of extreme metal, they despise with a passion everything revolving around glam, AOR or hair metal. I for one don't care about the way the glamers dress and their supposedly non-metal music. I wonder if Skid Row were not trying to reconcile both camps when they released 'slave to the grind', it was somewhat borderline thrash.
I believe the ear-candy melodies factor is the link between glam metal and AOR (well, for the latter, the melodic hard-rock bands at least)