Battle of the Power Ballads

[CrashedCarDriver]

this is going to be a bloody battle to the death

rank the ultimate power ballads of all time?

some contenders that stick out right now!

U2 - One/ With or Without You / All I Want Is You
R.E.M - Everybody Hurts / At My Most Beautiful
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
Depeche Mode - Somebody
Ryan Adams - La Cienega Just Smiled / Call Me on Your Way Back Home
Jeff Buckley - Lover You Should've Come Over
Beach Boys - Wouldnt It Be Nice
Crowded House - Dont Dream Its Over/ Better Be Home Soon
John Lennon - Mind Games
George Harrison - My Sweet Lord
Elvis Presley - Cant Help Falling In Love
Placebo - Burger Queen/ Without You Im Nothing

Bash Away!

 

[MrBrau1]

Cheap Trick-The Flame

 

[U2Kitten]

Have no fear, after I post my list the bashing will be all mine! But I do not care, I like these songs, they are pretty, powerful and enjoyable to listen to unlike, well, never mind.

Love Song- Tesla
Every Rose Has Its Thorn- Poison
Heaven- Warrant
Fly to the Angels- Slaughter
I Remember You- Skid Row
More Than a Feeling- Boston
Free Bird- Lynyrd Skynyrd
Tuesday's Gone- "
The Freshman- The Verve Pipe
Wonderwall- Oasis
Don't Look Back in Anger- Oasis
Disarm- Smashing Pumpkins
Today- Smashing Pumpkins
Gone Away- The Offspring
The Kids Aren't All Right- The Offspring

 

[~LadyLemon~]

Where are the journey fans??

 

[IWasBored]

U2 - One/ With or Without You / All I Want Is You
R.E.M - Everybody Hurts / At My Most Beautiful
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
Beach Boys - Wouldnt It Be Nice
George Harrison - My Sweet Lord
Elvis Presley - Cant Help Falling In Love

The Freshman- The Verve Pipe
Wonderwall- Oasis
Don't Look Back in Anger- Oasis
Today- Smashing Pumpkins
Gone Away- The Offspring
The Kids Aren't All Right- The Offspring
[/B]

i like all those songs. well, except the offspring ones...but i did like the offspring ones at one point.

i fail to see how any of them qualify as power ballads though... the top part of u2kitten's list is usually what i think of when someone says power ballad.

 

[Bono's shades]

Re: Re: Battle of the Power Ballads

i fail to see how any of them qualify as power ballads though... the top part of u2kitten's list is usually what i think of when someone says power ballad.

I agree. I thought a song had to have power chords to qualify as a power ballad.

 

[U2Kitten]

Y'all are right, I got off track there! I forgot "Two Steps Behind" by Def Leppard. I agree with Cheap Trick's The Flame too. Most of CCD's was not what I consider power ballads either.

More

Two Steps Behind- Def Leppard
Angel- Aerosmith
Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone- Cinderella (not a favorite of mine)
Carrie- Europe
I Saw Red- Warrant
Edge of a Broken Heart- Vixen (the GIRL hair band!)
If I Close My Eyes Forever- (Ozzy Osbourne with Lita Ford)
Total Eclipse of the Heart- Bonnie Tyler
REO Speedwagon- Keep On Lovin' You
Sister Christian- Night Ranger
The Metro- Berlin
Heaven is a Place on Earth- Belinda Carlisle
*sniff*

I miss MTV in the 80's

 

[U2Kitten]

Where are the journey fans??

Don't Stop Believin'

Some will win, some will lose, and some were born to sing the blues. Oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on...

Very philosophical look at life!


Stone In Love

Those crazy nights I do remember, in my youth
I do recall, those were the best times, most of all
in the heat with a blue jean girl
burning love comes once in a lifetime
found her singing by the railroad tracks
took her home, we danced in the moonlight
those summer nights are calling
stone in love
can't help myself from falling
stone in love!

*sigh* good time music!

When the lights go down in the city
and the sun shines on the bay
oh I want to be there in my city
oooh oooh oh
it's sad, oooh
there's been mornings out on road without you
without your charms
whoa whoa, na na na na na na oooh, oooh, oooh!

What a nice tribute to SF!

 

[MrBrau1]

Amanda- Boston

 

[pepokiss]

KISS - Beth, Forever, I Still Love You, Every Time I Look At You (amazing )...

 

[MrBrau1]

Every Rose Has It's Thorn- Poison

 

[MrBrau1]

Home Sweet Home- Motley Crue

 

[JOFO]

it depends on what kind of power ballad we're talking about: actual good songs, or mega-crappola overwrought drivel?

for the actual good songs, I say a tie between "One" and "Fake Plastic Trees".

for the other category, anything by any 80's hair band.

 

[Salome]

I never thought of One as a power ballad

I never think about Fake Plastic Trees at all

 

[JOFO]

I never think about Fake Plastic Trees at all

That's too bad, because it's a really great song.
oh well.

 

[RocknRollKitty]

Not all hair metal songs are power ballads. Some are just hard rock songs. It has to be kind of slow at least in some parts and a love song or a song with a message to be a power ballad. One is not a power ballad because it is soft music. It's sad when all 'hair metal' gets lumped together. I wonder sometimes if people have really listened to it or only hate it because VH1 and the internet tell you to Like all genres, it had its good and its bad. Like Poison's "I Want Action" or Warrant's "Cherry Pie" are not power ballads.

Speaking of KISS, Beth is too slow, soft and piano based to be power ballad. KISS's power ballad was "Hard Luck Woman"

 

[AvsGirl41]

Power ballads are a secret weakness of mine, especially when they have the big hair to go with them.

Def Leppard--Bringing on the Heartbreak

Queensryche--Another Rainy Night

Bad English--When I See You Smile

Queen--Who Wants To Live Forever?

Giant--I'll See You In My Dreams

Whitesnake--Is this Love?

I think the oddest one is "Winds of Change" by the Scorpions--the political power ballad.

 

[MrBrau1]

I'll Be There For You- Bon Jovi

 

[U2Kitten]

Avsgirl, I like most of those And what's wrong with big hair?

 

[U2Kitten]

Def Leppard was not a hair metal band. Not all bands in the 80's who had hair were hair metal. Def Leppard, like U2, was out in 1980 and broke big in 1983. They were a hard rock band. "Hair metal" as it is known today did not even come about until later in the 80's. After Poison and bands like that became popular, yes there were copycats in look and sound. Sadly, all rock bands with hair have in retrospect been labeled 'hair metal' and that is considered an insult. I remember the guy from Iron Maiden on TV once saying he had hair and he played metal but his band was not 'hair metal.' I wonder if the bands of the late 90's-early 00's who play rapmetal and numetal will one day be lumped together as 'bald and piercings metal'

 

[FelipeVox]

U2 - With or Without You
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
Ryan Adams - When The Stars Go Blue
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Iron Maiden - Wasting Love
Tori Amos - Northern Lad
REM - I?ll Take The Rain

 

[meegannie]

U2K is taking this thread by storm.

Total Eclipse of the Heart- Bonnie Tyler

That songs brings back some hilarious memories.

And some of these are NOT power ballads.

 

[IWasBored]

And some of these are NOT power ballads.

my general understanding is that metal bands or hard rock late 70s/80s bands wrote power ballads. i guess if you really wanted to pretend that nu-metal is some kind of legit category of metal, then staind would be masters of the modern power ballad (a scary thought in itself).

but radiohead?

 

[U2Kitten]

my general understanding is that metal bands or hard rock late 70s/80s bands wrote power ballads.

Yeah that's true, that's who did it! But not every song they wrote qualifies as a power ballad (as some people, not you, seemed to think unless I misunderstood)

i guess if you really wanted to pretend that nu-metal is some kind of legit category of metal, then staind would be masters of the modern power ballad (a scary thought in itself).

but radiohead?

Well that would be very hard to pretend, but it might just happen someday. Staind, Cold's Stupid Girl, I'm sure there are more but I don't really listen to them. I've really only heard those songs in the presence of my 14 year old neice who plays them in the car and while she's on the computer. Not that I own any.

Radiohead does not do power ballads, true. I don't get that one. Most of the stuff on his list wasn't a power ballad IMO.

 

[U2Kitten]

U2K is taking this thread by storm.

Total Eclipse of the Heart- Bonnie Tyler

That songs brings back some hilarious memories.

And some of these are NOT power ballads.

Remember the video, all those little kids in the ghost masks in the haunted castle or something? I can see why that one might be a hilarious memory

 

[meegannie]

my general understanding is that metal bands or hard rock late 70s/80s bands wrote power ballads. i guess if you really wanted to pretend that nu-metal is some kind of legit category of metal, then staind would be masters of the modern power ballad (a scary thought in itself).

but radiohead?

I don't get it either. I think U2Kitten's lists are the best....not completely limited to the 70s/80s hard rock/metal scene, but not stretching the definition of 'power ballad.'

 

[meegannie]

http://members.aol.com/K3774K/BalladBooth.html

 

[jkayet]

Total Eclipse of the Heart- Bonnie Tyler

That songs brings back some hilarious memories.

it WILL be a hit again one day when covers of power ballads become popular.

I also think of poison's 'every rose has it's thorn' & that foreigner song...i want to know what love is.

I don't think of thom yorke, as amusing as the image of him decked out in '80's attire & hair is...

 

[Salome]

That's too bad, because it's a really great song.
oh well.

oh well indeed was a great song


got to love Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac


but I wouldn't call that one a power ballad either

 

[IWasBored]

I don't get it either. I think U2Kitten's lists are the best....not completely limited to the 70s/80s hard rock/metal scene, but not stretching the definition of 'power ballad.'

yeah, she definetly knows what she's talking about.