Doug: Karen has previously expressed her disdain for power ballads of the 1980's, particularly calling out one of my personal fave bands, Journey. Me? I can go with a good power ballad. A particular favorite is The Flame, by Illinois rockers Cheap Trick. So, where are you on the spectrum of love/hate?
22 comments:
Generally my feelings for power ballads range from kind of liking to, like Karen, sort of hating them. For example, The Flame is one of my least favorite Cheap Trick songs. However, most of the ones that fall into my "like/kind of like" category are Journey's power ballads (even the admittedly sappy and overplayed Don't Stop Believin').
By the way, we should probably also have a discussion of a related musical form, the rock anthem (you know, Stairway to Heaven, Freebird, etc.) In fact, going back to Journey, are songs like Feeling That Way/Anytime or Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin' power ballads or rock anthems?
It would be the cool thing for me to deny that I like some power ballads. Actually I like Paul Rodgers a lot, the lead singer of Free, Bad Company, The Firm and some others too.
I will forgive him just about any arrangement, if I get to hear his bluesy pipes. It's not the song, it's the singer that really makes these things happen.
Rip Off
I hate them, hard to think of one Power Ballad I like. I'm not a big fan of ballads in general, power or otherwise. I think the Beatles wrote some great ballads, that's about it.
Is 'Dream On' a Power Ballad? That's the only one I can think of that I like.
Power Ballads are what turned me into fan of punk rock/hardcore in the 80s.
I'm kinda fuzzy on what the definition of Power Ballad is, actually. Some help?
HB
@humanbelly, some examples:
http://tinyurl.com/d4t9xsg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballad#Power_ballads
Jeez, HB, we're on the same wavelength. Was just pondering the same thing.
It's arguable as to the first ones, popularly I've heard 'My Love' or 'Angie' as being the first ones, but one could argue 'Hey Jude' in a way.
My def of a power ballad is a slow love song to a particular girl (or guy I suppose), with a high-octane electric delivery, when done by a typically heavy-metal or hard rock artist or group.
That last part leaves out Air Supply, perhaps Journey. I'd like to differentiate as Edo posed what exactly separates a ballad from an anthem. To me it's directed as a long song versus an over all anthem, such as "Hey Jude". Again, it seems in that case to be an anthem, but Paul's singing directly to Jude (without lyrically expressing love nor a heavy guitar presence, I know), so it is confusing.
It's my assumption that what we tend to regard as 'power ballads' didn't start until the mid to late 70s, but with that heavy rock solo I still look at 'My Love' as a contender.
See, I read J.A. wiki link and don't quite agree on the use of 'power ballads' here, but it's as good of definition as any I suppose. For instance, I regard 'Stairway' as more an rock anthem than a 'power ballad', expressing an ideal verses a love song, but I'm convinced there's far more cross-over and abiquity than you'd initially think.
It's all just labels, after all, isn't it..?
I think how much I liked a power ballad back in the day had to do with the singer that was delivering. For example, I thought that Steve Perry was an above average talent as a singer....you listen to him, you can tell he was influenced as much by soul and R&B as he was by rockers. He brings a little something extra to the mix when he sings, so I always stopped and listened to Journey's power ballads more than most. I think a lot of the 80's power ballads were placed on rock albums to sort of provide a "break in the action" anyway. Paul Rodgers and Rod Stewart fall in that category, too, and several others I know I'm leaving off.
I just got on here, so haven't yet taken the time to read the links J.A. submitted.
Night Ranger's Sister Christian, Whitesnake's Is This Love, Guns 'n' Roses Patience, and Poison's Every Rose Has Its Thorn are prime examples of 1980's hair bands' power ballads.
Edo -- while you may be on to something with the Journey songs you cite, for me at least they don't fall into the same category as those I named above.
Interesting comment from a few of you as to the vocalist being a prime mover -- like it.
David_b -- you brought up Air Supply. Maybe we'll run a post once we're back in February (we're about fully scheduled through December at this point) asking all readers to come out of the closet and admit to favorite sappy '70's songs that they love to sing along with!
Beatles? Nah -- not power ballads, just ballads.
Doug
Hmmmm, none of the Journey songs I mentioned fall into the power ballad category? I guess I like power ballads less than I thought (I'm guessing Open Arms is, in fact, a power balled - I really, really don't like that song).
As to the future subject you mentioned, Doug, there's plenty of sappy songs I'll readily admit I like, but just the mention of Air Supply makes me shudder - couldn't stand them back then, still can't stand them now...
By the way, that Wikipedia entry on power ballads is way off: Dream On isn't even a ballad, much less a power ballad, and Freebird and Stairway to Heaven are pretty much textbook examples of rock anthems (in fact, I remember when I was a kid back in the '70s, the cool older kids, i.e., high school kids who may or may not have been stoners, used to call Stairway - rather questionably in retrospect - "the hippie national anthem").
Doug has mentioned my 'disdain' for power ballads already. Let me say one of my major disappointments was seeing 70s hard rockers Aerosmith return in the late 80s as a highly manufactured product that seemed to churn out power ballad after power ballad. Talk about a lack of integrity...
In the Eighties, I was listening to the Bunnymen, the Smiths, New Order and the Scots "jangly" movement like Orange Juice or early del Amitri. Hair metal and 80s soft rock gave me the horrors, generally, but guilty pleasures could include Heart or Cyndi Lauper's I Drove All Night.
I appreciated Don't stop Believing more because it was a hit again when I started teaching up here. The way kids took to it was quite sweet considering Mumford and Sons were very big here.
I'd be happier with More Than Feeling, say or Since You've Been Gone which are more 70s, I suppose. I think a lot of Fleetwood Mac tunes could be classified as Power Ballads, also.
Karen, interesting that you should mention Aerosmith - I went through a phase, from about 8th grade to sophomore year in HS (this was in the early '80s), in which I was totally into them, just completely digging their stuff from the early and mid-1970s. Later, I couldn't believe that they became more popular than ever with that comeback in the late '80s, producing really inferior songs (compared to the early stuff). So yeah, really disappointing - although I did find their SNL guest appearance on Wayne's World pretty amusing...
I never got into Journey, but I was a major metalhead in the 80s so I liked some of the power ballads, though I generally went for the heavier stuff.
Like Karen said about Aerosmith, a lot of bands seemed to see power ballads as a way to increase sales and get radio airplay; ballads basically became ubiquitous for everyone from Aerosmith to Ozzy to Metallica, instead of being kind of an anomaly (like "Beth" by Kiss). So when everyone was doing it, it ended up feeling kind of trite overall.
Mike W.
There was a documentary on recently about heavy metal, with this episode being on the '80s hair metal phase. They caught up with the former members of these bands, and often they weren't into the power ballads, but put them out for the female fans and the airplay.
I still like Every Rose Has Its Thorn. I watched some of the singer's reality show, and that song sure stands high above his other stuff. It was based on a girl he loved who left him, and I think has an authenticity to it. Unusual that it had a country flavour also.
There's a great scene in Boogie Nights where Alfred Molina stops everything to play "air drums" along to Sister Christian.
Power Ballads. Argh! Urgh!
Trying to be a bit more articulate about it than that, I had my period of musical awakening when Punk and New Wave were filling the UK charts, so power ballads were never going to grab me.
However, like all musical genres, I do feel that Power Balladry is a church big enough to accommodate varied kinds of sins and while I'll never be able to get into poodle-rock pseudo-metal power balladry or the rampant warblings of Whitney or Mariah, I can get into some of the more fringe suspects.
I think the first thing I ever heard that could be labelled a power ballad was Everyday by Slade which was a huge hit when I was ten. I know it wasn't a hit in America and Slade are fairly obscure over there, so I'll post a link to it just in case anyone wants to hear what some of us view as the greatest rock voice ever to come out of Britain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKtJBe2V_WM
I do wonder if some of Roy Orbison's more "emotional" offerings like In Dreams would count as proto power ballads? In which case, I definitely approve of those too.
Mike W. has the best point here.. Aside from a few exceptions, the majority of 'power ballads' have been for sales and popularity for metal bands that otherwise wouldn't get widespread recognition.
Yes, the majority are banal and insipid, but they sell great. Edo's comment on Aerosmith mimics my thoughts on George Harrison's 80s 'comeback'. He wrote great, inspiring commercial stuff in the 70s, but it wasn't until a silly song like 'Got My Mind Set On You' that got him back on the charts. Strange thing that.
Again, it's just labels separating anthems from 'power ballads' to ballads; unlike some here, I wouldn't get hung up on definitive examples of each.
Embarrassing to say, but my reference to explaining what is and what isn't a 'power ballad' is probably what some KTEL music executive slapped on a 'power ballad' compilation LP and told me it was, quite frankly.
Umm, Edo, how is Dream On
*not* a power ballad? I always thought that song was the definition of one. Not a straight-ahead rock n'roller, but a soaring, slow-burning song with romantic/poetic lyrics that still uses electric guitars and a heavy rhythm section. Great song too...
There is nothing inherently wrong with a power ballad but the genre was much-abused in the 80s with a lot of supposedly hard-rocking bands rather shamelessly trying to get chart action with one.
The best in the 80s: Guns n' Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine"; Motley Crue, "Home Sweet Home"; Van Hagar, "When It's Love"; and Night Rider, "Sister Christian."
I'd also like to put in a good word for the Cramps' version of "Fever"...
Inkstained, I guess it's just a matter of everyone's definition. To me a power ballad usually has some kind of sentimental, romantic or otherwise emotionally charged lyrics (I'm trying to avoid terms with negative connotations, like 'sappy'), a song in which you often get the impression the singer is addressing the words to a specific person, and/or maybe pining about a lost love, or wooing a potential lover, etc.
Either that, or a song that basically narrates a story (naturally, about love, loss, etc.).
Dream On just doesn't fit the category to me, because it's more of a wistful, almost philosophical song. Either way, I agree with you that it is indeed a great (hell, awesome) song.
Also, much love for The Cramps...
...and david_b should get some kind of prize for remembering K-tel and their compilation albums. There's another discussion topic right there.
I.W., I disagree about Sweet Child of Mine--great tune, but too fast to be a ballad. Patience is one, as Doug mentioned.
Power ballads you are looking at songs such as Is This love-Whitesnake, Silent Lucidity-Queensryche, Hysteria-Def Leppard, Winds of Change-Scorpions etc. I define a "Power Ballad" as a slower tempo song by a hard rock band, not necessarily "heavy metal". I wouldn't classify anything that Fleetwood Mac, or Journey recorded as a power ballad. Most of the '80's and early 90's pseudo metal bands, more correctly hair bands, all had these type of songs. White Lion, Poison, Cinderella, the list iis probably endless of the bands sang a song like this. I'm of the mind that the record companies "encouraged" the bands to record this type of song. Personally, growing up in the 80's, i didn't really care for power ballads.
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