Dudes, we've appended to the end of the post a transcript of the audio. It's not perfect, and you'll have to imagine who's saying what, but it should do the job if you want to listen to power ballads at the same time that you ingest our thoughts on them. 🫶
I’m going to argue that the only one of those that’s a power ballad is MAYBE Celine’s, although I’m not convinced that soaring vocals and heavier drums alone are bringing the chorus quite to PB- status. The other two are just straight-up ballads, to my ear. PowerFUL ballads, but not power ballads.
I'd definitely agree the Frankie Goes to Hollywood version is powerful. I just watched All of us Strangers and the way the song is used as the end is heartbreaking 😭
Another great and thought provoking Stoop. Some of the songs you mentioned in the Stoop definitely brought back memories, not all good ones, of songs that I’d forgotten about (High Enough) and in some cases (Firehouse's abomination) that I wish I’d not been reminded of.
I’d not class myself as liking power ballads but the playlist has some notable songs that I do like (e.g. Blaze of Glory – not classed it as a power ballad before today but you’re right -, and Fly to the Angles - more of an ad hoc guilty pleasure-).
I can’t be reminded about Starship without thinking of how the evolution (or devolution) of a band can move from songs like Jefferson Airplane’s "White Rabbit" to “Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now” in the space of about 20 years. Granted though, the membership varied greatly and it wasn’t written by them.
To answer your first question, you’ve not mentioned Miles Away by Winger.
This is a vast amount of content. OK. I can do this. Any chance of a transcript to the stoop chat (A.I. could be of service 😬) so we can listen and read concurrently?
These are songs that feel (to me!) like they have the essence and spirit of a power ballad without going all out with guitars and glam. But I will defer to the pros!
I'd nominate Everything Everything - To the Blade as a power ballad released after 1998. I did think maybe Spanish Sahara by Foals, but I think it's missing that sing along at the top of your voice element.
I’d not heard this track before. It definitely goes hard in the chorus but I’m not sure it’s actually a ballad.
I was wondering about Shed Seven - Chasing Rainbows, or more recently Let’s Go Dancing. (You know it’s a great Stoop Chat when you’re still thinking about it the next morning!)
This was brilliant. That playlist takes me right back to high school and early college, before I had access to KROQ and Tower Records. Back then, I had a lot of discussions with my rock-oriented friends about the aesthetic and cultural value of power ballads. The general consensus was that they were money grabs and/or attempts to draw more female fans and/or made to be used by unattractive rocker dudes in their efforts to get girls (not women yet) to make out with them. Those who enjoyed power ballads could generally be identified by whether they preferred David Lee Roth-era Van Halen or Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen, and their masculinity or femininity could be (harshly) judged in accordance with that preference. One of the exceptions was "Dream On", which was universally appreciated.
To Martyn's point about the best power ballads being female-led, I'm not sure I agree. It seems to me that lot of the powerful female voices in hard rock (Lita Ford, Ann Wilson, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett), at least in the 80s and 90s, were trying to avoid ballad-y types of songs in an effort to distinguish themselves from pop stars and be more appealing to the young male customer base. They made a lot of fantastic songs, some of which fit the power ballad genre (definitely agree about "Alone"), but the songs they're really remembered for are the big, bombastic rock anthems. For example, I feel like Pat Benatar should be a purveyor of power ballads, but when I review her singles, they all seem to start out too big or maintain the "power" aspect for too much of the song. Maybe "We Belong" or "Promises in the Dark" would count. Part of the issue, of course, is that there just weren't that many women rockers during that period. If there had been more equal representation, I bet there would be a lot more easily classifiable power ballads by women.
Thanks for this, everyone! I'm going to be listening to this playlist for a while, I think.
Having thought some more on this, I think being the product of a male or at least masculinized performer may be a necessary criterion for classification as a power ballad, since the style was a notable departure from the hard/glam/heavy norm, and that was almost exclusively a male domain in the 80s and 90s, at least for mainstream, easily accessible music.
I enjoyed listening to this so much. I love a substack post that forces me to take notes! I was unfamiliar with most of your playlist tbh and, even having listened to it, there is much that remains unmemorable! I have always been a huge fan of “The Glory of Love” though so I’m pleased to see that included. Nice to see Armageddon get a mention too. Power ballads seem so often to be linked to film sound tracks, perhaps it’s their easy digestibility? I am hugely surprised that there was no discussion of either Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” or Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is”, surely the two most famous examples of the genre (at least in the UK). I also thought of the Cutting Crew track “I Just Died In Your Arms” although I’m not 100% sure it’s a power ballad. It definitely feels like it should be though.
I am spending WAY too much time thinking about this today and I’m confusing myself, I think. Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees feels very similar in tone to Run by Snow Patrol but I think it has more of a gradual build up than a big chorus. The idea of a Radiohead power ballad is making me laugh though so I wish it were true.
I’m actually wondering about this one. I feel like maybe it could be but my instinct says no and I’m not sure why.
Thanks for slipping an extra Aerosmith at the end there, the playlist became a bit of a come down after Heart - Alone 😭
I feel like our UK power ballads were soothed/tempered a bit by the new wave/synth/electronic scene of the 80s compared to the big hair/metal influenced output from across the Atlantic:
1. T'Pau - China in Your Hand (the quiet then sax crescendo is 🥊)
Ultravox - Vienna (? too soft)
And I'm gonna chuck Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness into the ring as a power ballad for the yearning/pang feel, soaring guitars and piano run
2. Struggling to think but is Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball a power ballad?
3. Bear with me, but T-Pau - China in Your hand. As a child all I could think about was imagining not dropping or crushing a tea cup I was holding, but could just about get to grips with "don't wish too hard, because they may come true, and you can't help them" was trying to say careful what you wish for, but as an adult finding out the whole song is referencing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was 🤯
Wrecking Ball is a great call, yeah. I’m also kinda wondering if The Last Dinner Party’s “On Your Side” makes the cut. Great, GREAT song, but maaaaaybe not quite bombastic enough in the choruses?
Just had to familiarise myself with The Last Dinner Party's "On Your Side". Almost. It doesn't quite take off for me, could do with a moment of quiet in the last third, followed by a soaring instrumental and finish loud, not quiet like it does. But it did remind me of Florence and the Machine and I think "Never Let Me Go" could fit the bill
I’m not sure there is anything “oomphy” enough on that album. I was wondering about “Portrait of a Dead Girl” myself. “On Your Side” is a beautiful track though either way.
Motorcycle Emptiness is an amazing track, as is China in Your Hand. I’ve never considered either to be power ballads but it’s a great excuse for another listen! Until this very minute I did not realise that song was about Frankenstein. 🤯 indeed!
Good point. The vocal possibly remains too steady and doesn't let rip enough as well. I concede Motorcycle Emptiness and tuck it back in my Manics collection.
Yeah, there probably are others....the power is seeping from my examples the more I think about them 🤔 You Love Alone Is Not Enough (with Nina Persson) could also possibly count?
"Your love alone is not enough" is a brilliant song, one of my favourite more "recent" Manics songs but I'd struggle to put it in the PB category. It's a bit constant in terms of its sound and pace I feel. Weirdly all songs I've heard today are now being assessed on the PB criteria that this post laid down.
No your right. I find my mind is open to the idea of what a post 1998/modern power ballad could be, but then the OGs from the 80s just reappear in my mind and suck the power out of them
I mean, as a playlist it's ok - but it's a very 'masculine' playlist - when we know that the best power ballads are female-led... It's time for a rethink, I think.
Also - STILL waiting for Crap Attack to get a vinyl release!!
This is in no way meant to be an exhaustive playlist; it’s a skeleton key for the stoop chat, and therefore only includes songs explicitly mentioned in the conversation. Hence the inclusion of a song that we both loathe (“Nothing Else Matters”) and the exclusion of songs that we consider to be the heights of the form but just didn’t get around to mentioning in the already very long chat (Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Def Leppard’s “Love Bites”). Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us” simply must be on any “Best PBs” playlist, but couldn’t be on this one because it was mentioned only in the body of the S.D.I.R. text, rather than the Stoop Chat. Curses!
Due to these formal parameters, the playlist had to include a big plop of those admittedly dude-heavy hair metal titles that we ran through in quick succession to highlight the desperate importance of the PB to that genre (although Warrant’s “Heaven” would have made the cut, regardless).
Feel free to weigh in with a list of your own hits. I’d advise that it include Martika’s “Toy Soldiers.”
Also an added point, I think we’d all like to have some collabs on WAS9… obv you won’t get someone has famous as Martika (let’s not kid ourselves)… but you never know!
1) I would argue that John Waite's "These Times Are Hard For Lovers" (1987) is at least a Very Dramatic Ballad. (It's co-written with Desmond Child!) It might be a little too up-tempo or have too much guitar at the opening to fit a strict definition of a power ballad, but it's darn close.
2) Man, I don't know. Do you ever listen to The Struts? I feel sure something they've done qualifies as a power ballad.
***TRANSCRIPT NOW AVAILABLE***
Dudes, we've appended to the end of the post a transcript of the audio. It's not perfect, and you'll have to imagine who's saying what, but it should do the job if you want to listen to power ballads at the same time that you ingest our thoughts on them. 🫶
Imagine making a power ballad playlist that doesn't include a single Power of Love song. Jennifer? Frankie?
CELINE!!!!
I’m going to argue that the only one of those that’s a power ballad is MAYBE Celine’s, although I’m not convinced that soaring vocals and heavier drums alone are bringing the chorus quite to PB- status. The other two are just straight-up ballads, to my ear. PowerFUL ballads, but not power ballads.
Yes, there are stronger Celine contenders, that's for sure. Namely It's All Coming Back To Me Now.
Love Celine ❤️
I'd definitely agree the Frankie Goes to Hollywood version is powerful. I just watched All of us Strangers and the way the song is used as the end is heartbreaking 😭
The Frankie one is one of my all time faves.
Another great and thought provoking Stoop. Some of the songs you mentioned in the Stoop definitely brought back memories, not all good ones, of songs that I’d forgotten about (High Enough) and in some cases (Firehouse's abomination) that I wish I’d not been reminded of.
I’d not class myself as liking power ballads but the playlist has some notable songs that I do like (e.g. Blaze of Glory – not classed it as a power ballad before today but you’re right -, and Fly to the Angles - more of an ad hoc guilty pleasure-).
I can’t be reminded about Starship without thinking of how the evolution (or devolution) of a band can move from songs like Jefferson Airplane’s "White Rabbit" to “Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now” in the space of about 20 years. Granted though, the membership varied greatly and it wasn’t written by them.
To answer your first question, you’ve not mentioned Miles Away by Winger.
I love Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now! But I also love “Mannequin” so I guess that’s not much of an endorsement 😂
This is a vast amount of content. OK. I can do this. Any chance of a transcript to the stoop chat (A.I. could be of service 😬) so we can listen and read concurrently?
Rough but decent transcript appended to the end of the post!
I appreciate that. I wish I had any advice at all for transcribing but I do not. Please don't go to massive lengths if it's simply too time-consuming!
(podcast transcripts are generally helpful for those of us who have a strained relationship with processing audio-only information).
Good call, Hayley. I’ll look into this and try to get something up today!
🙏📖
What? No shout out for Meatloaf?
Also going to put the Darkness - Love is Only a Feeling out there for consideration for a post 1998 power ballad.
Meatloaf is more musical theater than PB. His songwriter, Jim Steinman, nailed it with “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” though.
I've started a playlist, folks. No idea how to make it collaborative but let me know if anything should be added (or, indeed, removed). To be clear, this playlist is for songs that fit the power ballad formula / dynamic, but may not at first glance (listen) be considered power ballads: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/333BxciCRfqorBRq4oc0gG?si=NHVOKGrmQhujtaJ0_61GTQ&pi=e-YRiP0nc4RQyh
It’s a great list but I don’t get a power ballad vibe from it. Especially Bubblegum (although I do love it).
These are songs that feel (to me!) like they have the essence and spirit of a power ballad without going all out with guitars and glam. But I will defer to the pros!
Blinded by the Sun. What a great song that I'd forgotten about. Thanks Hayley!
That whole album 💥💥💥
I like the Seahorses but I'm ashamed to admit I don't own the album.
The trouble with posts like this is the topic fast becomes my entire personality.
I'd nominate Everything Everything - To the Blade as a power ballad released after 1998. I did think maybe Spanish Sahara by Foals, but I think it's missing that sing along at the top of your voice element.
I’d not heard this track before. It definitely goes hard in the chorus but I’m not sure it’s actually a ballad.
I was wondering about Shed Seven - Chasing Rainbows, or more recently Let’s Go Dancing. (You know it’s a great Stoop Chat when you’re still thinking about it the next morning!)
Aye, probably a bit too fast, but a wonderful ear cleanser after listening to that Tesla song 🤮
I would have also suggested Blur - This is a Low, but it's from 1994
This was brilliant. That playlist takes me right back to high school and early college, before I had access to KROQ and Tower Records. Back then, I had a lot of discussions with my rock-oriented friends about the aesthetic and cultural value of power ballads. The general consensus was that they were money grabs and/or attempts to draw more female fans and/or made to be used by unattractive rocker dudes in their efforts to get girls (not women yet) to make out with them. Those who enjoyed power ballads could generally be identified by whether they preferred David Lee Roth-era Van Halen or Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen, and their masculinity or femininity could be (harshly) judged in accordance with that preference. One of the exceptions was "Dream On", which was universally appreciated.
To Martyn's point about the best power ballads being female-led, I'm not sure I agree. It seems to me that lot of the powerful female voices in hard rock (Lita Ford, Ann Wilson, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett), at least in the 80s and 90s, were trying to avoid ballad-y types of songs in an effort to distinguish themselves from pop stars and be more appealing to the young male customer base. They made a lot of fantastic songs, some of which fit the power ballad genre (definitely agree about "Alone"), but the songs they're really remembered for are the big, bombastic rock anthems. For example, I feel like Pat Benatar should be a purveyor of power ballads, but when I review her singles, they all seem to start out too big or maintain the "power" aspect for too much of the song. Maybe "We Belong" or "Promises in the Dark" would count. Part of the issue, of course, is that there just weren't that many women rockers during that period. If there had been more equal representation, I bet there would be a lot more easily classifiable power ballads by women.
Thanks for this, everyone! I'm going to be listening to this playlist for a while, I think.
You make some great points here. I agree that women in rock were probably trying to avoid ballads. The power ballad certainly feels male dominated.
Having thought some more on this, I think being the product of a male or at least masculinized performer may be a necessary criterion for classification as a power ballad, since the style was a notable departure from the hard/glam/heavy norm, and that was almost exclusively a male domain in the 80s and 90s, at least for mainstream, easily accessible music.
I enjoyed listening to this so much. I love a substack post that forces me to take notes! I was unfamiliar with most of your playlist tbh and, even having listened to it, there is much that remains unmemorable! I have always been a huge fan of “The Glory of Love” though so I’m pleased to see that included. Nice to see Armageddon get a mention too. Power ballads seem so often to be linked to film sound tracks, perhaps it’s their easy digestibility? I am hugely surprised that there was no discussion of either Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” or Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is”, surely the two most famous examples of the genre (at least in the UK). I also thought of the Cutting Crew track “I Just Died In Your Arms” although I’m not 100% sure it’s a power ballad. It definitely feels like it should be though.
This compelled me to get out of bed, great start to the weekend. Commencing research!🤟🔥🔥🔥🎸
I am spending WAY too much time thinking about this today and I’m confusing myself, I think. Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees feels very similar in tone to Run by Snow Patrol but I think it has more of a gradual build up than a big chorus. The idea of a Radiohead power ballad is making me laugh though so I wish it were true.
I’m actually wondering about this one. I feel like maybe it could be but my instinct says no and I’m not sure why.
https://open.spotify.com/track/7jePbTgyKol6gHshTbF3Xz?si=NhdiCimGTGud5_f5GomvZg&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A3Hnux3n5xhBOIrIxUsO2AF
High And Dry is kind of a PB, but lacks the courage to descend into utter bombast.
Creep goes in pretty hard on verse-to-chorus bombasticness ratio front. PB verdict?
This is an astute observation. It is certainly just about as balladic as they’ve ever got!
Thanks for slipping an extra Aerosmith at the end there, the playlist became a bit of a come down after Heart - Alone 😭
I feel like our UK power ballads were soothed/tempered a bit by the new wave/synth/electronic scene of the 80s compared to the big hair/metal influenced output from across the Atlantic:
1. T'Pau - China in Your Hand (the quiet then sax crescendo is 🥊)
Ultravox - Vienna (? too soft)
And I'm gonna chuck Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness into the ring as a power ballad for the yearning/pang feel, soaring guitars and piano run
2. Struggling to think but is Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball a power ballad?
3. Bear with me, but T-Pau - China in Your hand. As a child all I could think about was imagining not dropping or crushing a tea cup I was holding, but could just about get to grips with "don't wish too hard, because they may come true, and you can't help them" was trying to say careful what you wish for, but as an adult finding out the whole song is referencing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was 🤯
Wrecking Ball is a great call, yeah. I’m also kinda wondering if The Last Dinner Party’s “On Your Side” makes the cut. Great, GREAT song, but maaaaaybe not quite bombastic enough in the choruses?
Just had to familiarise myself with The Last Dinner Party's "On Your Side". Almost. It doesn't quite take off for me, could do with a moment of quiet in the last third, followed by a soaring instrumental and finish loud, not quiet like it does. But it did remind me of Florence and the Machine and I think "Never Let Me Go" could fit the bill
I was thinking of Florence and the Machine but hadn’t managed to pinpoint a track.
I’m not sure there is anything “oomphy” enough on that album. I was wondering about “Portrait of a Dead Girl” myself. “On Your Side” is a beautiful track though either way.
I was just listening to Prelude to Ecstasy via the lens of PBs and chose not to add On Your Side to playlist. How about Mirror, though?
I actually think “On Your Side” has more build than “Mirror”. I love this whole album so much
Motorcycle Emptiness is an amazing track, as is China in Your Hand. I’ve never considered either to be power ballads but it’s a great excuse for another listen! Until this very minute I did not realise that song was about Frankenstein. 🤯 indeed!
100% China In Your Hand is a power ballad. Added to my playlist!
Motorcycle Emptiness: no. Amazing AMAZING song. But think the (constant, unbuilding) guitar is luring our ears to mislabel it as a power ballad.
Good point. The vocal possibly remains too steady and doesn't let rip enough as well. I concede Motorcycle Emptiness and tuck it back in my Manics collection.
I’ve just had a listen to Wrecking Ball. I think that’s a pretty good shout actually.
Not thought of the brilliant Motorcycle Emptiness as a power ballad. Tsunami perhaps though?
Yeah, there probably are others....the power is seeping from my examples the more I think about them 🤔 You Love Alone Is Not Enough (with Nina Persson) could also possibly count?
"Your love alone is not enough" is a brilliant song, one of my favourite more "recent" Manics songs but I'd struggle to put it in the PB category. It's a bit constant in terms of its sound and pace I feel. Weirdly all songs I've heard today are now being assessed on the PB criteria that this post laid down.
No your right. I find my mind is open to the idea of what a post 1998/modern power ballad could be, but then the OGs from the 80s just reappear in my mind and suck the power out of them
I think the PBs peaked by 1998 so maybe things after 98 can only be classed as post-PB?
It messes with your brain, doesn’t it?!!!
I mean, as a playlist it's ok - but it's a very 'masculine' playlist - when we know that the best power ballads are female-led... It's time for a rethink, I think.
Also - STILL waiting for Crap Attack to get a vinyl release!!
This is in no way meant to be an exhaustive playlist; it’s a skeleton key for the stoop chat, and therefore only includes songs explicitly mentioned in the conversation. Hence the inclusion of a song that we both loathe (“Nothing Else Matters”) and the exclusion of songs that we consider to be the heights of the form but just didn’t get around to mentioning in the already very long chat (Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Def Leppard’s “Love Bites”). Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us” simply must be on any “Best PBs” playlist, but couldn’t be on this one because it was mentioned only in the body of the S.D.I.R. text, rather than the Stoop Chat. Curses!
Due to these formal parameters, the playlist had to include a big plop of those admittedly dude-heavy hair metal titles that we ran through in quick succession to highlight the desperate importance of the PB to that genre (although Warrant’s “Heaven” would have made the cut, regardless).
Feel free to weigh in with a list of your own hits. I’d advise that it include Martika’s “Toy Soldiers.”
Wait! Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us *is* on this playlist.
Whatever!
Undoubtedly it should include Martika!
Also an added point, I think we’d all like to have some collabs on WAS9… obv you won’t get someone has famous as Martika (let’s not kid ourselves)… but you never know!
Would also say “Toy Soldiers” is a great shout! Shame it wasn’t included in the stoop chat.
"Kiss From A Rose" by Seal, especially the way this guy sings it to his cat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scczP4z9xr4&pp=ygUZa2lzcyBmcm9tIGEgcm9zZSBzZWFsIGNhdA%3D%3D
That is not a happy Kitty! 😂
1) I would argue that John Waite's "These Times Are Hard For Lovers" (1987) is at least a Very Dramatic Ballad. (It's co-written with Desmond Child!) It might be a little too up-tempo or have too much guitar at the opening to fit a strict definition of a power ballad, but it's darn close.
2) Man, I don't know. Do you ever listen to The Struts? I feel sure something they've done qualifies as a power ballad.