Favorite Power Ballads From 1988-1992

Loudwire put out their best power ballads of all time that don't suck. I don't think they understand what a power ballad is.

Before I saw that article, this happened. I'm a big college football fan and Andy Staples, who writes for Sports Illustrated about college football, has a column every Monday which includes a "Random Ranking". Via Twitter, I asked Staples if he'd ever done a random ranking on power ballads between 1988 and 1992. He replied that it would be in this week's column, You'll need to scroll past the football stuff to get to it if you're not a fan.

Why 1988 to 1992? Because that was power ballad prime and power ballad hell, concurrently. Then Nirvana blew the whole thing to shreds.

What follows are my Top 10 Favorites. Notice I didn't say "best". That's subjective. "Favorites" lets you know that it's subjective.

1. "I Remember You", Skid Row. This song perfected what the power ballad is supposed to be. A tame, acoustic opening. Hints of power in the verses. A bombastic, memorable chorus. The ramp up in the bridge before the guitar solo. Bring it down for the third verse before blowing out the final choruses with Sebastian Bach's soaring vocals.



2. "House of Pain", Faster Pussycat. Harmonica intro into acoustic verse. This one may not fit the classic definition because it actually has some real meaning behind the lyrics. Taime Down has, shall we say, an interesting voice. But it has the memorable chorus. Tasty electric guitar solo. It doesn't have the signature bridge. What can I say, it's one of my favorites and it's my list.



3. "Ballad of Jayne", L.A. Guns. Familiar acoustic start through the verse and chorus. This one, again, has more meaning behind it, being that it's about someone who has passed. Goes with the electric guitar solo. More subdued than others, before transitioning back to acoustic. And we get some strings towards the end.



4. "Heartbreak Station", Cinderella. I could probably put three Cinderella songs on this list, but I'm just going to stick with this one. Tom Keifer as a ballad writer is unmatched. You get the lap slide solo in this one. You get the piano ballad from "Don't Know What You Got" and the more pure power ballad in "Nobody's Fool", just to name a few.



5. "I Saw Red", Warrant. OK, I know most people, if they were to choose a Warrant song would choose "Heaven". Not me. This is just an old fashioned cheatin' song. And he's very nonchalant about it. He didn't see his face, but he saw hers and closed the door and now he's not going to love her anymore. So simple, yet so poignant. Then the bridge before the solo, we get the pain and anger.



6. "Close My Eyes Forever", Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne. I'm not sure if this may not be the best song on my list. But it fails to make the top stop on the spirit of the list because it has too many epic qualities. It's a great song, but a bit over-produced and over-dramatic, but I can't not include it.



7. "Love's A Loaded Gun", Alice Cooper. Hey, if Ozzy and Lita can get into the power ballad game, why not Alice? Of course Alice puts his own twisted twist on the power ballad by making it about a call girl that he's in love with/stalking?



8. "Something To Believe In", Poison. OK, I know, "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" is the popular choice. I don't know, I like my power ballads to have some substance. And besides this is the superior song.



9. "Fly To The Angels", Slaughter. I think Mark Slaughter oversings everything, but that's just him. It doesn't take away from the greatness of this song. Again, this song has some meaning to it. I don't know, maybe it's just me getting older, but mostly I'm not here for the superfluous. Don't get wrong, I still like my nonsense, but don't give me meaningless fluff.



10. "Love Of A Lifetime", Firehouse. This is not a great song. Why do I include this? Because this is the kind of schlock that killed an era and led to grunge. Not that I'm bitter or anything. Number 10 should always be a wildcard, right? Or make a point? The previous nine are good songs. This is just what happened.

Don't Compare Bro-Country to Hair Metal

I've read/heard it many times: Bro-Country is country music's version of Hair Metal.

Well, a tweet from @FarceTheMusic sent me down a Cinderella (the band, not the book/movie) wormhole that ended with a thorough exploration of the music of my high school years.

The actual tweet: Cinderella's "Heartbreak Station" is one of my favorite alt-country ballads ever.

Of course I went back and listened. He's right. And that's what sent me down the wormhole. There are many Cinderella songs that are very country-tinged. But what other 80's Hard Rock bands were doing the same thing? Not exactly the same thing, but stuff that would be considered a different genre 25-30 years later.

Here is Cinderella's "Heartbreak Station".



Cinderella was always more hard blues rock than Hair Metal anyway. They, along with some of the others I will post just kind of go lumped into the category, fair or not. I could post a few more Cinderella songs here, but I want to diversify.

LA sleaze rockers put out some really good Americana type songs in the 80s. One I really like is Faster Pussycat's "House of Pain".



Another sleaze rock band with this type of song was LA Guns. "Ballad of Jayne" is a great song.



Even the ultimate Hair Metal band had several songs of substance. Here is Poison's "Something to Believe In".



Great White got pegged into the same Hair Metal category, but like Cinderella, they were always more bluesy hard rock. I had a hard time choosing which song of theirs to go with, but I chose "House of Broken Love".



Did I cherry pick? Of course I did. But these songs were all released as singles. I didn't dig deep into album cuts. I just get tired of people dismissing Hair Metal and now referring to it as "Butt Rock". It's 80s hard rock and lot of it stands the test of time. I admit, there was a bunch of crap, especially towards the end, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And everyone should be reading Farce the Music. Funny, snarky and fantastic.