Artist O.A.R.

Maryland-formed O.A.R. found a wide audience on college campuses for its friendly, unassuming jam-band rock, which served the group well across seven studio albums and a long string of increasingly larger concert venues. Perhaps in search of wider commercial success, the band made a 90-degree turn on 2008’s All Sides, jettisoning its bland-but-popular frat rock for a glossier-but-still-bland, radio-ready sound that robbed O.A.R. of whatever identity it may have already had. It’s a direction it’s apparently sticking to, though, based on the single “Love Is Worth The Fall,” which appeared on the Twilight soundtrack. The band is now touring behind its latest album, King, which was released in late 2011.

Updated 01/31/2012