Power Ballad Dust-Up Round II! X-Tians don't Cry!

[burlivesleftnut]

I never said that and I don't even remember the song. Stop making fun of me just because I really like Power Ballads.


*mopes*

[Zarles]

Def Leppard - Photograph?

Sorry Zarles, the song was recorded before Rick Allen lost his Arm. Photograph is definitely not a power ballad.

Crap.

EDIT: Don't stop believin', burl.

[DennisMM]

Just a ballad, Dennis. John Waite was never known for rocking out. In fact all he he was known for was Missing You... which is a BALLAD.

Why does a power ballad have to be associated with a hard rock band? The Wiki entry's list of power ballads begins with The Raspberries, who were not hard at all. REO was not a hard-rocking band by any means. Waite's '70s band The Babys, while playing plenty of ballads, also rocked. Listen to "Wild Man," "Midnight Rendevous," "Head First" and "If You Could See Me Fly" and say Waite's music wasn't as hard as REO's. Jebus, "If You Could See Me Fly" sounds like The Who!

"Missing You" has a softer sound than The Babys tough material but a harder sound than some of their ballads and harder sound than a typical pop ballad. It's also got a big mix and tortured vocals about love. It's a power ballad. For that matter, by the standards set here (including the loose tempo regulations) The Babys' "Every Time I Think of You" is a power ballad!

[burlivesleftnut]

Ballad.

[DennisMM]

Duck season!

[Keepcoolbutcare]

wait a minute, Journey's "Don't stop believin'" is way more up tempo than "Come Sail Away". Does that mean that KCBC's whole face-off is a sham??¿ This whole power ballad thing is sounding dodgier by the post.

i only mention that, I don't know...in the first post?

[Retardo_Montalban]

Like I can remember that far back. You also put that bit of doubt 3 paragraphs down on your post. My ADD can't possibly hold that far down a post.


There hasn't been one song mentioned in this thread that hasn't been contested whether its a power ballad.

[Keepcoolbutcare]

Round II!

this time, due to popular demand, with "snippets" and videos!

the Night Ranger power ballad "classic"* "Sister Christian"

vs.

Guns N' Roses not so classic and frankly baffling decision to go all power ballad-y "Don't Cry".

you can find "snippets" of both songs, and indeed both versions of G N' R's put a magnum in my mouth and pull the trigger till it goes click opus here.**

Videos too!

X-Tian!

Look! Shannon Hoon!

Now, sure, in terms of videos, the pretty, cinematic opus of "Don't Cry" wins handily - even without the brief catfight that sent my teenage hormones a raging, for what it is (bloated commercial), it's not too shabby. And it's kinda fun to see how videos had evolved over the 7 years between the songs. While even seeing that Night Ranger vid kinda makes me want to change my vote, I can't, for the following reasons...

It made no fucking sense in any well ordered universe for Gun N' Roses to even sink to the depths of power ballad-om. If one of the definitions of what makes a PB a PB is true, "the insistence of record company executives who may have coerced their signed hard rock and heavy metal bands to include a powerful ballad on an album based upon the possibility that the power ballad would attract a larger listening audience than the band's typical music. The potentially larger listening audience could then lead increased album sales",*** then why in the holy vagina of Mary would G N' R, who sold roughly a gajillion copies of their debut album that was lacking in all things power ballad ("Sweet Child O'Mine" being the closest, and it's not even all that close), why in Cthulu's good name would they ever descend to such depths?

Since there was certainly no studio pressure on Axl and Co. to record a PB, then...then...Axl actually LIKED power ballads!****

And that's just disturbing on every level of disturbdom.

*classic 'cuz it's over 20years old.

**big ups to the leftnut!

***wiki

****goes to prove that cocaine is indeed a hell of a drug...especially when mixed with heroin. Cocaine fueled APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION - you've got to be strung out of your gourd to go from that level of insane crazy genius to the depths of the still most disappointing double album I've ever heard, USE YOUR ILLUSION.

[so sorry]

Ugh... I freaking hate both of these shit-turd songs.

But I REALLY dislike G&N, so Sister Christian it is for me.

[Keepcoolbutcare]

Ugh... I freaking hate both of these shit-turd songs.

But I REALLY dislike G&N, so Sister Christian it is for me.

oh come on now, "Sister Christian" is fun for drunken sing-a-longs!

at least it has that going for it.

plus, one can enjoy it ironically.

[tapehead]

Has anyone outside of America even heard of Sister Christian? - I think, like so many eighties 'hard rock' and 'metal' Night Ranger toured Asia a lot, and that's why I know of them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they never made it to the UK.

[papalazeru]

Has anyone outside of America even heard of Sister Christian? - I think, like so many eighties 'hard rock' and 'metal' Night Ranger toured Asia a lot, and that's why I know of them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they never made it to the UK.

Listening to it now


God bless you tube.

You'll always lose to INXS.

[Keepcoolbutcare]

Has anyone outside of America even heard of Sister Christian? - I think, like so many eighties 'hard rock' and 'metal' Night Ranger toured Asia a lot, and that's why I know of them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they never made it to the UK.

dunno.

I consider the Power Ballad to be a distinctly American thang...like jazz, but with a lot more suck.

[papalazeru]

Has anyone outside of America even heard of Sister Christian? - I think, like so many eighties 'hard rock' and 'metal' Night Ranger toured Asia a lot, and that's why I know of them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they never made it to the UK.

dunno.

I consider the Power Ballad to be a distinctly American thang...like jazz, but with a lot more suck.

So Queen is an American thing?

They didn't make power ballads?

Neither did INSX?

[thomasgaffney]

I assume the youtube video is of Don't Cry [Original Version] from Use Your Illusion I and not Don't Cry [Alternate Lyrics] from Use Your Illusion II, right?

Either way, I have to vote Sister Christian...

[papalazeru]

I assume the youtube video is of Don't Cry [Original Version] from Use Your Illusion I and not Don't Cry [Alternate Lyrics] from Use Your Illusion II, right?

Either way, I have to vote Sister Christian...

Nope.

Wouldn't midn listening to link to other songs. I'm quite enjoying the one I found.

[Keepcoolbutcare]

I assume the youtube video is of Don't Cry [Original Version] from Use Your Illusion I and not Don't Cry [Alternate Lyrics] from Use Your Illusion II, right?

yessir.

and Burl, kindly gent that he is, put up both versions for one's listening pleasure.

did they do a vid for the version on USE YOUR ILLUSION II?

[thomasgaffney]

I assume the youtube video is of Don't Cry [Original Version] from Use Your Illusion I and not Don't Cry [Alternate Lyrics] from Use Your Illusion II, right?

yessir.

and Burl, kindly gent that he is, put up both versions for one's listening pleasure.

did they do a vid for the version on USE YOUR ILLUSION II?

I don't think so. Which is a shame, because IMHO, I prefer the alternate lyrics from Illusion II. I missed that Burl had both versions up. Go him!

[Keepcoolbutcare]

So Queen is an American thing?

no, jackass, I just don't consider any Queen song to be a power ballad. They did exactly what they wanted, and wrote proper ballads, but not power ballads.

plus, one of them was queer, which allowed them to be campy.
Camp is pretty much the exact opposite of power ballad-om, where sincerity really, really matters.
"We Are the Champions" isn't exactly a love song, is it? So that's out.
Queen is, for this discussion, out.

They didn't make power ballads?

Neither did INSX?

um, INXS started off new wave, and was never a hard rocking metal band, were they?

you, sir, need to go to Power Ballad school!

[tapehead]

Has anyone outside of America even heard of Sister Christian? - I think, like so many eighties 'hard rock' and 'metal' Night Ranger toured Asia a lot, and that's why I know of them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they never made it to the UK.

dunno.

I consider the Power Ballad to be a distinctly American thang...like jazz, but with a lot more suck.

The distinctly Honky contribution to the musical arts of the 20th C.

Probably the closest relation we had in Australia was the like of the Divinyls, or, perhaps closer to the formula, Uncanny X-Men.

[Keepcoolbutcare]

I don't think so. Which is a shame, because IMHO, I prefer the alternate lyrics from Illusion II. I missed that Burl had both versions up. Go him!

heh, he put that one up first, and it took me a minute to realize that wasn't the version I so despised from my youth...

it was the other version, which I despised even more!

so I asked him to put up the original, he, of course, responded snarkily but eventually complied, and now we get both ear bleeding versions!

we're going to do that from now on, put up links for the songs and, if we can find 'em, the videos too.

if your music collection lacks power ballads, consider this the one-stop thread for filling that glaring musical gap...

[papalazeru]

I think I just lost a few teeth and want to start playing a blanjo.

[DennisMM]

"Don't Cry" is just so over the top, especially the video, that I had to choose Axl's shakiness. "Sister Christian" is so clean and pure that I've always hated it. I also hated that every fifteen year old girl in America adored it and so I heard it ten times a day no matter where I was. Also, I can't make heads or tails of the lyrics of "Sister Christian."

[stereosforgeeks]

I go with the Night Ranger!

GnR just hasnt got the goods to deliver against what is a great ballad sing-a-long!

They shouldn't have been making ballads in the first place!

[burlivesleftnut]

"Don't Cry" is just so over the top, especially the video, that I had to choose Axl's shakiness. "Sister Christian" is so clean and pure that I've always hated it. I also hated that every fifteen year old girl in America adored it and so I heard it ten times a day no matter where I was. Also, I can't make heads or tails of the lyrics of "Sister Christian."

Yeah seriously... the lyrics toxian are teh dumb.

[Zarles]

Yay! Round 2.

I went with teh Ranger of Night. Great song to begin with that was only made more classic with a fantastic movie appearance. FTW!

[burlivesleftnut]

This is crazy. Am I going to have to log in as Kirks 20 other alts to get Don't Cry to the top? AM I?

[Retardo_Montalban]

I voted "Don't Cry", but mainly because Weird Al did an awesome commentary/parody of it.