In the USA AOR meant Album Oriented Rock radio or Album Oriented Radio (since the UK didn't have FM-type radio stations it was usually taken as meaning Adult Oriented Rock).
AOR arose in the early 1970s as part of a concerted effort by radio executives--in collusion with the major record labels--to standardize FM playlists. Taking the Top 40 format dominating AM radio, AOR consisted of tight, scaled-down song rotations, usually one or two selections preferred by the artists themselves (or the listening audience, if the street-level verdict was unanimous in nature) from the bestselling rock albums of the day. It was geared to album, rather than 45 r.p.m. single, sales; many of the playlist selections were never released as singles.
AOR has never constituted a stylistic grouping; playlist inclusions have always been defined by radio programmer decisions. The artists enjoying heavy AOR rotation represented a wide range of musical genres. Nevertheless, some general characteristics of this have been discerned by industry observers. In his rambling survey of AOR appearing in The Year in Rock, 1981-82, J.D. Considine termed it "hard pop"; that is, "hard, because its sound derives from the contours of hard rock and heavy metal; pop, because its formal structure is oriented toward popsong melodicism, not the sprawling, riff-based jamming of traditional heavy metal." He adds that critics of the category dismiss it as entertainment (as opposed to "music"), whereas supporters have pointed to its propensity for selling records. AOR was also widely criticized for its tendency to bar black artists from playlists.
AOR originally means Album Oriented Radio, and it's the name that early FM Radios in the USA used to describe their approach, due to the fact that they had little propaganda, they were able to broadcast complete albums and songs that exceed the time parameters of 2.30 - 3:00 minutes of AM radio.
Later the bands that oriented their musical direction towards complete albums instead of the search of the hit single, were called Album Oriented Rock, because this was the music that AORadio played.
Origins
Afterwards the definition changed to ADULT Ori1ented Rock, because this music was listened by Young adults (22 - 30) in opposition to Disco and Punk that was listened by teens mostly...Then this term changed again to Adult Contemporary and AOR became almost a genre to define bands as STYX, Boston, Toto, etc.
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