80's Power Ballads
April 7th 2008 01:47
The 80’s was certainly the era of the rock power ballad.
As the decade went on they only became more popular, and by the end you couldn’t release a rock record without a few of them onboard.
It was okay for a guy to love it, because it was his favourite hard rocker getting soft and sad about a lost love or the hard road that is life.
But naturally they found a real audience with the girls.
Yes, chicks loved the power ballad.
Suddenly the Motley Crue audience wasn’t just full of black t-shirted, leather jacketed metal heads – no, now there were girls wanting to hear Home Sweet Home too.
Eddie Van Halen busted out on their ballad Dreams, Randy Rhoads made a full acoustic solo for his mother and Steve Lukather famously soloed out on Toto’s Rosanna.
Slash had 3 solos on Sweet Child O Mine, Metallica’s Fade to Black has several, and Joe Satriani and Steve Vai made entire songs out of their ballad solos Always with Me, Always With You, and For The Love of God respectfully.
There are a few different styles of power ballad.
There is the old fashioned piano ballad like Aerosmith’s Angel or Home Sweet Home
Then there was the keyboard/synth heavy ballads like anything by Europe or Whitesnake.
There was the electric ballad like Def Leppard’s Love Bites.
And of course the acoustic or ‘cowboy ballad’, made especially popular by all the hair metal bands.
A lot of these songs seem cheesy by today’s standards, but the bands of today wouldn’t dare reach out and write songs with such depth and emotion – okay, they didn’t always have so much depth...in fact it became fairly formulaic by the end.
So here’s a list of some of the more memorable power ballads of the day.
Slaughter - Fly To The Angels
Poison - Something To Believe In
Foreigner - I Want To Know What Love Is
Dokken - Alone Again
Faster Pussycat - House Of Pain
Whitesnake - Is This Love
Kix - Don't Close Your Eyes
John Waite - Missing You
Winger - Miles Away
White Lion - When The Children Cry
Night Ranger - Goodbye
Whitesnake - Here I Go Again
Motley Crue- Home Sweet Home
Ozzy Osbourne - Shot In The Dark
Winger- Headed for a Heartbreak
Cinderella - Nobody's Fool
Journey - Open Arms
Europe- Carrie
Boston- Amanda
Skid Row - I Remember You
Scorpions – Wind of Change
Cheap Trick – The Flame
Warrant – Heaven
Cinderella – Nobody’s Fool
Def Leppard – Hysteria
Survivor- The Search Is Over
The Bangles - Eternal Flame
Toto – Africa
REO Speedwagon - Keep On Loving You
Survivor - Burning Heart
Gary Moore – Still Got The Blues (For You)
Queen - Who Wants to Live Forever
Mr. Mister - "Broken Wings"
Mr. Big - To Be With You
Steelheart - I'll Never Let You Go" -t
Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
Twisted Sister - The Price
KISS - Forever
Guns 'n' Roses - Patience
Journey - Separate Ways
Night Ranger - Sister Christian
Skid Row – 18 and Life
L.A. Guns – Ballad of Jayne
Firehouse - When I Look Into Your Eyes
KISS – Reason To Live
Tesla – Love Song
Cinderella - Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)
Motley Crue – Without You
ZZ Top - Rough Boy
Van Halen – Why Can’t This Be Love?
This is one of those lists that could go on forever.
Feel free to list your own...
‘...just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song.’
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Comment by Nomad
Awesome Food
Nomad
Comment by samaritan
Fringe Faith
Samaritan
www.fringefaith.com
Comment by Mike Wheeler
Cinema Rat
Extreme Critic
Comment by Jarrah
Back to the Eighties
Not even close.
But I also hate that song.
Jani Lane who wrote it hates it also.
If you do like Warrant, we interviewed them last week : HERE
LOL
Comment by Mike Wheeler
Cinema Rat
Extreme Critic
Comment by PopulistConservative
Angry Electorate
Keel - Because the Night