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Are power ballads the death of a musical genre?
As I'm listening to the current schlock on the radio, I'm thinking back to the late 80's and early 90's. At that point, we'd gone from good rock-n-roll music and had started to get into the power ballads from the hair metal bands. Then, rock died, we got a plethora of boy bands, and grunge hit. In thinking about this, I came up with a theory - as soon as a genre of music gets to be uber-cool, it gets invaded by wussies who write power ballads. Then, that type gets a huge boost in the ratings and dies off a few years later.
To illustrate, here's a progression of bands that I want you to consider: Jethro Tull, Foghat, AC-DC, and the like give way to Journey and their cohorts. What happens? Hard rock basically dies off (in an interesting subnote - this does give rise to millions of mullets...)
Then, after a bit of weak music hangs around for a bit, we start to get the harder bands of the 80's - Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Anthrax, and the like. The kids in shop class rejoice as they have hard anti-social music that they can annoy old folks with. Then what happens? Hair metal - Ratt, Poison, Dokken, and others. While they were mostly hard music (sex, drugs and rock-n-roll), they started down the path of wussie music. Remember 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn'? Probably Poison's biggest hit. That opened Pandora's box. Then you got Warrant, Nelson, and Richard Marx. Need I remind you that this was one of the darkest moments in musical history?!? Coinciding with this was the explosion of the boy band.
Relief soon followed. Nirvana exploded on the scene along with Pearl Jam, STP (who desperately wanted to be Pearl Jam), Alice in Chains, the Breeders, and a plethora of bands that rocked. Some had social songs, others had dark emotional tracks, and no one over 25 could understand a damn thing they said. Life was good. The buzz on grunge continued unmolested for years.
Then came the slow change. The constipated bands (think Creed and their clones) showed up. Now, we've got the power ballads coming out again. Would Nirvana have done a ballad? Could you imagine Pearl Jam doing one (ignore the Last Kiss cover - that's a tribute to the past)? STP singing about anything other than drugs? No - but now you have Hoobastank and others pushing their schlock. It's the death of grunge, I tell you.
Do I know what's going to replace it? No - but please, by the Goddess, let it ROCK!
hey hey! richard marx is great! bah, no accounting for taste these days... :P
Posted by: samkit on July 24, 2004 05:04 PMWTF are you talking about?!?! Power ballads are the artists way of showing emotion and it's nothing like emo, it's powerful and beautiful hence "power ballad". If you want something without any meaning to it go listen to cannibal corpse or some kind of death metal or grindcore, knock urself out. But i think that power ballads are some of the best songs that many bands have written and this is because it has true meaning and comes from the heart. So power ballads don't ruin any genre they only separate the living from the dead.
Posted by: Eric on March 31, 2005 11:27 AMWTF are you talking about?!?! Power ballads are the artists way of showing emotion and it's nothing like emo, it's powerful and beautiful hence "power ballad". If you want something without any meaning to it go listen to cannibal corpse or some kind of death metal or grindcore, knock urself out. But i think that power ballads are some of the best songs that many bands have written and this is because it has true meaning and comes from the heart. So power ballads don't ruin any genre they only separate the living from the dead.
Posted by: Eric on March 31, 2005 11:27 AMHmmm - Extreme's "more than words" was sooo deep, wasn't it?
I stand by my statements - when you start getting power ballads, the genre of music they're coming from dies off and is replaced. It's simple historical fact.
Posted by: ronaprhys on March 31, 2005 11:36 AMIt's pointless to try to state that "when this happens, this or that is the result". There may be some trends, but it cannot happen in the way described...there is no 'historical fact'...only your perception of reality. Move to a different town, move in a different circle...and 'reality' changes. There are Power Ballads and power ballads. Some are great some are not. However, all power ballads should be from the rock genre, none of this Robbie Williams Angels etc. Great as it might be, it don't warrant 'power' in my book.
Posted by: kkaamm on June 26, 2005 07:01 AMActually, it's not pointless. That's hjow science works. Not that this is science, however, but your statement is still invalid.
Secondly, there are historical facts. Certain things happen on certain dates. The fact that Journey isn't getting the radio play, album sales, etc., that they used to serves to illustrate my argument even further.
Thirdly (I do feel in the mood to try and go through all of the numbers this way), reality doesn't change - one adapts to the new circumstances that they're in.
Fourthly, your last statment just makes no sense.
Posted by: ronaprhys on June 26, 2005 09:21 AMI guess that I'm a little confused about the comment in the July 24/04 post, "Would Nirvana have done a ballad?" Remember Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box", which surely classifies as a power ballad!
Posted by: Daisee on August 1, 2005 09:31 PMNot sure it does. I could be wrong, but I really don't think it was a power ballad - it was a bit too dark and the like.
Posted by: ronaprhys on August 2, 2005 05:46 PMHaving grown up as a teen through the 80's (no old man jokes, please!) I can say that the 'power ballads mostly killed metal. In order to draw new fans, bands were forced to include ballads on their albums, thereby generating sales. While I will accept the fact that there were some good songs, mostly it was record company fodder for the masses. When the music became a joke, something had to replace it- enter grunge. While bands like Metallica (corporate sell-outs, a rant of mine), Anthrax and true metal bands have gone on; most died out due to the lack of interest.
Yes, times change. That fact is the one absolute rule of music. Either bands adapt and continue, or are forced to disband and (gasp!) get real jobs. Those that continue to persist in what they are doing usually end up becoming jokes (AC/DC as an example). With the renewed interest in the 80's/90's music, look for a lot of the 'hair metal' bands to return... anyone noticed the ads for bands reuniting? i/e quiet riot, winger, stryper etc.
Ballads may not have killed heavy metal, but they quickened it's demise. Now, a new breed of metal bands have arisen, going back to the time tested theory that people want to rock. In time, they'll also do a ballad or two. Times change, musicians mature and need to get their emotions into a song. Don't hate them for it, though. Stick with the good bands and let the bad ones die off like the one hit wonders they are.
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