I love a good 1980/90s power ballad.
Classic Rock have just posted their top 40. I agree with about 60% of these.
Open Arms by Journey is the all time power ballad for me.
Anything missing from the list?
Power Ballads
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Wot, no Purple Rain?
Also – wot, no Eternal Flame?
Wrong Heart song, What About Love is far better, to these ears.
The big omission is surely High Enough by Damn Yankees.?
WOW! That was awful in a good way.
Never heard that before but it ticks every rock and video 1990’s cliche in the book and still sounds good and gave employment to an ex member of Styx.
A guilty pleasure of mine for longer than I care to remember.
First heard clips of this on the never ending “Ultimate Rock Ballads” informercial that used to crop up a lot on the digital channels some years back. It’s a belter.
And here’s the infomercial…
Roxette – It Must Have Been Love. I used to not think much of this band but I have come to acknowledge there is something and this song is an absolute banger in this context. So full of feeling and craps on more or less everything in this list.
Nice enough tune but…no in this context.
Well it depends who you ask. It’s on some lists but not on others. Is quality a factor or not?
Purple Rain should be at 1, but enjoying the love for I Found Someone by Cher (what a banger), and the superb Always by Bon Jovi.
Also missing: Wrecking Ball (should be in the top 3), Against All Odds, Someone Like You, Nothing Else Matters and Show Must Go On. Oh, and Drivers License. Cannot leave out Drivers License.
Purple Rain is a true omission but may have been seen as a bit too pop and pre top hair metal ballads I guess.
Nice version here though
There is only one winner. “Alone” by Heart, complete with exploding grand piano.
I had forgotten how over the top the video was.
Peak 80’s hair and guitar poses.
Knocks Slash on top of a mountain into a mullet.
I had a bit of a pash for Nancy Wilson.
The Power Ballad invaribly starts with loss and rises through a key change to hope, notvalways with resolution
April Wine – Just Between You And Me
That was excellent.
My Trespass moment!
Rose Tattoo were a bar band trading in AC/DC esque good time Rock & Roll. Angry Anderson – baldy lead singer- added this to the Power Ballad cannon.
Too paint by numbers as a power ballad imo.
But, but…Kylie! Jason!
I was genuinely going to suggest this too. Not my cup of tea at all but in this genre it’s a clear contender and should have been on the list. Is it cos he is bald?
I got a sudden flashback to Harry Hill’s TV Burp there. Didn’t he used to occasionally shout ‘baldies unite!’?
It’s very heavily weighted to Rick acts doing their ‘sensitive’ number, which isn’t surprising given the source. When I think power ballad I think Jennifer Warnes’ Power of Love, Barbra Streisand even.
Very good point. This. Superb guitar solo too.
My mum played that album to death. She taped it with a record jump on the first track and for years I thought that’s what it was supposed to be like.
I’ve got the single :-p
A piano track helps set the tone.
REO Speedwagon – Keep On Loving You
That’s cracking, that. But not a patch on Take it on the run.
I remember enjoying those two songs when they came out back in 1980, but this one tops both of them for me. Who can resist a song with the line ‘candle in the window’?
Mind you, I did and still do like ‘Take It On The Run’ for the deliciously chewy harmonic resonance of its sound. But ‘Can’t Find This Feeling’ is the better ballad.
That is an okay song from a poor album.
Take it on The Run is the best REO song for me.
You people are SICK.
Thank the lord, I didn’t want to be first!🙂
I detest power ballads – they give me the dry boak.
Peace – out!
Not my cup of tea at all, but surely Bonnie Tyler with Total Eclipse of the Heart wins?
Was just about to say that. Conspicuously absent from this list.
On the whole I’m not really a fan of power ballads. Putting it mildly. Celine Dion and Aerosmith bring me out in a rash.
But Total Eclipse is one of those songs that seem to transcend the genre (is it a ‘genre’?). As does Toto’s Africa and Mike and The Mechanic’s The Living Years. Am I misunderstanding and just naming Power Pop songs instead?
As I interpret it, power pop is like punk, only without the anger and the spitting – 3 minute (tops) guitar songs.
The daddy of landfill indie, it bores me rigid*
Makes me wonder about power as a prefix. Is there power prog? Power lounge? Power Americana? Etc…
*@rigid-digit – I think you’re more of a fan?
That’ll be me. A fine descrption.
Power Pop is new wave-esque punky pop drawing a line back to Beatle type melodies and Badfinger.
Power Ballads also attract the title Soft Metal
Not sure there are “winners” in this parade of the straining necks, dai…
Got Badfinger’s ‘Without You’ on a comp. but in v. little danger of listening to it, so I’m claiming ‘0 out of 40’.
That’ll go with my ‘3 out of 100’ from Classic Rawk’s Top 100 Albums of the 1970s.
Ever since that day, I’ve been monitoring whether ‘Let It Be’, ‘After the Goldrush’ and ‘L.A. Woman’ should be given house space. Presently I’m edging, certainly in the case of the latter two, towards ‘no’.
Another from my misspent youth.
Alice Cooper and Only Women Bleed?
I think I generally prefer power bollards.
Now you’re talking.
Phwoar!
I like Pollard’s Bowers, (paging @hubert-rawlinson for a suitable imgur pic).
There y’go @salwarpe
Or more bowerish
😍
None of the above are ballads. This is a ballad.
Richard Page is power ballad royalty. He was offered the gig to replace Bobby Kimball in Toto and also was offered the lead singer with Chicago when Peter Cetera left.
I avoid power ballads when I can. They have a tendency towards whingieness that’s unappealing to me.
Can’t think of a single one that I like.
Quaterflash Harden My Heart is a great song and well deserved on the list.
Ignore the crappy video and just enjoy the tune.
Hated this when it came out. Quite enjoy it now. See also “More than Words” by Extreme.