It’s Arena Rock.
ELO does fall squarely in the Arena Rock category. They’re by far the best quality band in the genre, but they’re definitely in it. I think they could fairly also be called art rock, but I’d say that their Arena-ness supersedes their art-ness, if only by a slim margin.
To address Mr. Blue Sky’s point: The things that define Arena Rock don’t necessarily have to do with the sound of their shows.
Some common features of Arena Rock:
–Big, complex songs. The songs are often longer than 4 minutes, and may include either orchestral instruments or lots of multi-layered synthesizer. The songs are supposed to be grand and impressive. Sometimes they just sound melodramatic and cheesy.
–The bands usually have more than 4 members. The You need a big band to make big songs, right?
–The bands use a lot of synthesizer. Seems like they always have some guy with a multi-sided, multi-tiered synthesizer extravaganza.
–The bands are white males. Obviously, rock is a male-dominated form, but Arena rock bands don’t even have female singers. And rock is mostly white. But non-whites are practically nonexisisent in Arena rock.
–Really bad hair. Big huge ugly mops of curly hair. Sometimes accessorized with tinted aviator-style glasses.
–Related to the bad hair–non-sexual front men. The classic classic rock bands often featured a sexualized and showy front man. Jagger, Daltrey, Plant. This tradition has continued ever since. Many rock bands don’t have such a frongt man, but none of the arena rock bands do. It’s not just that it was out of style at the time–plenty of rock bands that were contemporaries of the arena rock bands had 'em–Van Halen, Aerosmith, AC/DC.
–The songs frequently deal with highfalutin’ and/or pseudo-intellectual subject matter–myths, legends, the passage of time. All we are is dust in the wind…
–They died with the coming of MTV.
I’m sure there are more common features. Those are just off the top of my head.
And FWIW, I didn’t know that it was shameful to like Arena Rock. I love it. I don’t think I could listen to the albums of most of the bands, but I love the hits. It is pure unadulterated cheesy fun.
Come to think of it, Blue Oyster Cult could be classed as an Arena Rock band. They’re definitely metal, but they do meet the Arena Rock critera. They sure have the big melodramatic song thing going on. I don’t know if it’s apparent if you just know them from their hits (more cowbell!) but if you listen to their albums, they are so completely and hilariously melodramatic that I expect Cheez Wiz to come flying out of the speakers. The golden age of leather? Nosferatu? The last man on earth standing on a beach? Ha! I love Blue Oyster Cult.
I see bdandhr’s comment on preview–We do this because it’s fun. We don’t do it because we think it’s necessary for Og’s sake!
And the Bay City Rollers? They’re Arena Rock Wannabes. And that’s pathetic.
