Bouncy keyboard passages, big soaring choruses, vocal harmonies and plenty of slushy ballads: yep, it must be AOR.
AOR gets a lot of stick, with people pointing to bands like Journey, REO, Foreigner and Toto, and usually laughing or puking. With good reason sometimes. AOR bands are not, to quote a phrase, reinventing the wheel. They're not even customising it. AOR bands are not known for their innovation or progression, and to the untrained (and sometimes even the trained) ear, one can sound much like another.
But there are some great bands out there, and in this thread I'm going to try to show you them. Not just AOR, but melodic rock, maybe even melodic metal (what, really, is the difference between the two?) - anything that veers more in a pop direction without actually losing its rock roots. Feel free to comment, drop in your own suggestions or just shake your head in despair.