We are desperate.  With time running out for Internet Radio, I have no choice but to scour the web for people who may be interested in helping us complete this project.

I was looking at VH1's list of the top 25 power ballads of all time, and was thinking:

What the **** are some of these songs DOING on this list??

Songs like "It's Been Awhile" by Staind, or Nickelback's "How You Remind Me."  Do they REALLY belong on such a list, or am I the one out of my mind for thinking they don't?  What MAKES a song a Power Ballad?  Let's look at the Power Ballad entry from Wikipedia:
Power Ballad is the name given to a genre of songs that were frequently included on arena rock, hard rock and heavy metal albums in the 1970s and 1980s, though the style has evolved into more modern forms since.

These songs often explored sentimental themes such as yearning and need, love and loss. Their usually confessional nature differed from metal's more lyrical themes of hedonism, violence, or the occult. The term is partly a misnomer, as they are not so much ballads as love songs. In the years when record companies first considered the marketability of power ballads, they perhaps calculated that power ballad was more accessible and appealing than metal love song. Simply, Power Ballads were immediately marketable, appealing to the public, and ready for radio airplay.
OK, that seems straight forward and may even allow those songs on the list.  of course, another defining feature of a Power Ballad is crowds tend to hold up lit cigarette lighters during those songs.

Then we have my own definition, which basically coincides with Wiki's for the most part, which is:  a power ballad is a monster love song generally by a metal/hair band.  It is a form that has died out in the modern era.

Which now brings me to my point...

After 2 weeks of suggestions we had a pretty comprehensive list of Power Ballads for consideration and we came to the voting part. All of the suggested songs are listed our poll, and you simply select your favorites.

TOP POWER BALLADS  WE NEED VOTERS!!!

You may select more than one song, but please, only vote for those you truly believe are the TOP Power Ballads. Don't go selecting every song in the list.

If you DO NOT see a song in the list that you think should be there, DO NOT VOTE and tell us so we can get it in the list before you vote.

Also, please, please, please get everybody who you think might even be remotely interested in this to vote. This will only work if we get a lot of people voting. 5-7 people voting will not give us a good list.

We're desperate to get this poll completed and the show produced before July 15!

July 15 is fast approaching and so far no relief for webcasters has been announced so we have to proceed as though we will be shutting down on July 15.

This means we will probably have to give up our hope of reaching 100 voters, and are just trying to get in as many as possible now.  We need your help still!  So if you want to hear this show, GET PEOPLE TO VOTE!

You and anyone you get to vote do NOT have to register to vote. You and anyone you get to vote do NOT have to post comments. Just VOTE!!!!!

Help us finish this before time runs out!

TOP POWER BALLADS

Well I gave it my 2 cents. My top votes went to these absolute classics :-

REO Speedwagon - Can't Fight This Feeling
Heart - These Dreams
Sheriff - When I'm With You

oh and I couldn't resist a vote for Nelson "Love and Affection".  :D

  Staind?  Nickelback?  You've gotta be kidding...

No kidding.  Not only that, but Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz, Creed.  With Creed ranking as #4.  Who the hell did they even ask to get idea for this list?  Now you can see why we did this.


This was VH1's Top 25:
25.  Lita Ford - Close My Eyes Forever
24.  Van Halen - When It's Love
23.  Staind - It's Been Awhile
22.  Scorpions - Still Loving You
21.  Queensryche - Silent Lucidity
20.  Tesla - Love Song
19.  Kid Rock - Only God Knows Why
18.  Cinderella - Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)
17.  Heart - These Dreams
16.  Nickelback - How You Remind Me
15.  Skid Row - I Remember You
14.  REO Speedwagon - Keep on Loving You
13.  Lenny Kravitz - Again
12.  Mötley Crüe - Home Sweet Home
11.  Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
10.  Whitesnake - Is This Love
9.  Night Ranger - Sister Christian
8.  Def Leppard - Love Bites
7.  Poison - Every Rose Has Its Thorn
6.  Guns N' Roses - November Rain
5.  Bon Jovi - I'll Be There for You
4.  Creed - With Arms Wide Open
3.  Kiss - Beth
2.  Aerosmith - I Don't Want to Miss a Thing
1.  Journey - Open Arms


When we first started the project we started out by posting everywhere we could to get suggestions from people, even MySpace (notoriously young).  We finished Stage 1 with 128 songs for people to select their favorites from.  Not one of the suggestions given was Staind, Nickelback, Kid Rock or Creed...

We're gunning for 100 voters minimum but I don't think we'll make that.  We'll see how close we get before we close it down and tally everything up for the finished show.

Cinderella-Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)-I remember being the only one in my entire class who loved this song!
Queensryche-Silent Lucidity-One of those songs I never get sick of.

Cinderella-Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)-I remember being the only one in my entire class who loved this song!
Queensryche-Silent Lucidity-One of those songs I never get sick of.


  Silent Lucidity is an amazing song...

  It's one of those "WTF?!" songs.  Totally left field coming from a group like Queensryche.  The orchestra accompaniment is perfect...

scorpions winds of change

   Silent Lucidity is an amazing song...

   It's one of those "WTF?!" songs.  Totally left field coming from a group like Queensryche.  The orchestra accompaniment is perfect...

I love that song.  It has a sort of Pink Floyd atmosphere.  But that was '91.  We're talking '80s here.



scorpions winds of change

Good one.  Not a song everybody remembers.

Journey: Wheel in the Sky

At some point in the early 90's I got my hands on two albums titled "Absolute Power Ballads" and "More Absolute Power Ballads":

ABSOLUTE POWER BALLADS

Still Loving You - Scorpions
I Remember You - Skid Row
Every Rose Has Its Thorn - Poison
High Enough - Damn Yankees
Love Conquers All - Deep Purple
I Don't Love You Anymore - Quireboys

Wanted Dead Or Alive - Bon Jovi
Is This Love - Whitesnake
Without You - Mötley Crüe
Alone - Heart
Heaven - Warren
Empty Rooms - Gary Moore
When The Children Cry - White Lion

MORE ABSOLUTE POWER BALLADS

Send Me An Angel - Scorpions
Home Sweet Home ('91 Remix) - Mötley Crüe
I'll See You In My Dreams - Giant
To Be With You - Mr. Big
Miles Away - Winger
I'll Cry For You - Europe
Wasted Time - Skid Row

When I'm Gone - Michael Schenker Group
Lover of Mine - Alannah Myles
Laugh 'n' a ½ - Disneyland After Dark
Bye, Bye Johnny - Retrun
Mama, I'm Coming Home - Ozzy Osbourne
Stairway To Heaven - Led Zeppelin

I don't agree with all of them but there's some good stuff here.

I just wanted to qoute the message on "Absolute Power Ballads" for you, written in 1991:

The line between powerful and painful is no doubt narrow when it comes to rock ballads, a branch of Hard Rock which in the latter part of the 80's is experiencing a sales boom, most Hard Rock bands who normally laud straight Rock 'n' Roll have always one or two ballads as part of their repertoire but not until now have they become consistant hits, appealing to audiences far beyond Hard Rock circles.

The result connot always be described as entirely credible even though the song itself might be a gem, the lyrics in Hard Rock ballads most often run completely counter to the band's otherwise more brutal image, the leather-clad, tattooed and heavily partying male members of the band who indulge in songs abou scatily clad girl, fast cars and wild nights out on the town suddenly have no hesitation in baring themselves, exposing themselves as good guys who cry and who love passioately and completely.

In the ballads they turn their eyes away from alcohol and asphalt to direct them towards heaven and angels, to dream themselves away to the pure, great and and true love, titles such as "Heaven", "Is This Love?" and `"I Remember You" pay testament to this, even as far as the music itself goes one sometimes wonders if there isn't some sort of tacit agreement, because although the bands differ radically between themselves as to their respective profiles they agree totally on what a Rock ballad shoud sound like.

To suggest - as many people do - that the huge popularity of the Rock ballad was ignited by Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" is not telling the whole story as the song is in line with their other productions and mostly served to prove the acoustic potential of Hard Rock, neither did the AOR bands such as Journey, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner and Boston - and others with ballads as base - have anything to do with the matter.

It is actually KISS who should get the blame for the modern Hard Rock ballad; in 1976 - when they released "Detroit Rock City" - they soon discovered that far more radio time was devoted to the sugar-sweet ballad "Ruth" on on the B-side, hardrockers too were allowed to have conventional hits, nomatter how outrageous their image, moreover this made girls open their eyes to Hard Rock, which was no longer a concern of boys only.

The Hard Rock ballad bridged the gap between cult and commerce, still today ballads are the safest way of ensuring a high ranking spot on top of the pops, it's probably also thanks to the Hard Rock ballad that the sales of Hard Rock records rose from a 6% share of total sales of rock records in the United States in 1980 to a 26% share in 1990 (According to Billboard, November 10th 1990) but even if it's easy to raise a surprised eyebrow when confronted with the fact that an old decibel rocker like Ted Nugent today is to be found playing the fragile "High Enough" in Damn Yankees on can't deny that the ballad is a solid piece of work deserving admiration.

Thus many feel called upon to create Hard Rock ballads but the few who have been chosen to actually succeed in this intention have succeed with a vengnce, a fact clearly attested to by this collection but to question the purpose, object and meaning of the Hard Rock ballad would be tp break the rules of the game, which everyone concerned - hardrockers and audience alike - are fully satisfied with, so what if some of the bands givi9ng interviews where they seriously emphasise the importance of honesty and earnestness in the creation of a good ballad, following which they run away laughing all the way to the bank, barely being able to hide their delight and then returns to grinding on about more Earth-bound things like sex, drugs and Rock 'n' Roll on nine songs out of the record's ten, that's the name of the game so bring out the cigarette lighters.

Susanne Ljung, Journalist

I though you might find it interesting.

That VH1 list isn't as bad as you're making it out to be. Sure, it has some duds, but all lists do. It takes songs from the 80's,90's, and today, and did the right thing by the majority of the list being great ballads from the 80's.

I don't understand the complaints.

The only thing truly surprising about the list is they chose November Rain over Sweet Child O Mine, and they probably should've switched places between REO Speedwagon and Creed.

Asia: The Heat of the Moment

Does that count?

Well, it's not really a ballad.

We received a sufficient amount of votes since the initial posting of this thread and the show aired today.  You can view the list as voted by our listeners here. :)