Your favorite power ballads and melodic rock

Can’t list them all... but here’s a good lot of them!


Def Leppard - Hysteria
Billy Idol - Eyes Without a Face
Crowded House - Don’t Dream It’s Over
Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels
Tears For Fears - Pale Shelter
Mr. Mister - Broken Wings
Mr. Mister - Kyrie
Cutting Crew - Died In Your Arms
Johnny Hates Jazz - Shattered Dreams
Real Life - Send Me An Angel
Toto - Africa
The Motels - Suddenly Last Summer
The Motels - Only the Lonely
Spandau Ballet - True
Simply Red - Holding Back the Years
Phil Collins - One More Night
Phil Collins - Take Me Home
U2 - New Years Day
Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky
The Police - Every Breath You Take
The Police - Wrapped Around Your Finger
The Cars - Drive
The Eurythmics - Here Come the Rain Again
Tom Petty - Don’t Come Around Here No More
Tom Petty - You Got Lucky
Pink Floyd - Learning to Fly
Foreigner - Waiting for a Girl Like You
Kix - Don’t Close Your Eyes
Steve Perry - Oh Sherry
Journey - Send Her My Love
Journey - Lights
Scorpions - No one Like You
Whitesnake - Here I Go Again
Whitesnake - Is This Love
Enuff Z’nuff - Fly High Michelle
The Cult - Edie (Ciao Baby)
Cinderella - You Don’t Know What You Got...
Skid Row - I Remember You
LA Guns - One Way Ticket
LA Guns - The Ballad of Jayne
38 Special - Hold On Loosely
Night Ranger - Sister Christian
Motley Crue - Home Sweet Home

Wow, I absolutely hate almost all of those since I deplore power ballads in general. I do like a few in that list though:

Mr. Mister - Kyrie
Toto - Africa
Spandau Ballet - True
The Police - Every Breath You Take (only because people completely misunderstand the intended meaning of the lyrics)


It's going to take me a while to contribute something of my own to this thread because as I said I absolutely cannot stand the dreaded power ballad 99% of the time; I have to dredge through my mind to sift out a few of that 1%.

tohostudios wrote:

Wow, I absolutely hate almost all of those since I deplore power ballads in general.   I do like a few in that list though:

Mr. Mister - Kyrie
Toto - Africa
Spandau Ballet - True
The Police - Every Breath You Take (only because people completely misunderstand the intended meaning of the lyrics)


It's going to take me a while to contribute something of my own to this thread because as I said I absolutely cannot stand the dreaded power ballad 99% of the time; I have to dredge through my mind to sift out a few of that 1%.

I know you’re picky about your music toho! Lol

I’m a child of the 80’s and a sucker for melodies. My two main genres that I like is Metal and 80’s “New Wave” synth pop. Throw in some tasty 70’s soft rock too.

I like some of the 70s soft rock. Like America, Gordon Lightfoot, Jim Croce, CSN; definitely more than I like 80s synth crap. I can't stand most 80s synth pop - I was more into the new wave/punk stuff then.

70’s soft rock is great!

Damn OCD and spell corrections had me edit 10 times. Lol

If I listen to some softer music once in a while and refresh my ears from the monotony, it tends to help me appreciate the metal and heavy shit again.

It’s just balance.

Some songs that come to mind I like, and in actuality I don't consider hardly any of these ballads, just mellow and chill:

Scorpions, Holiday, and Still Loving you
Laaz Rockit, The Omen
Judas Priest, Here comes the tears
Blue Oyster Cult, Then Came the last Days of May
Iced Earth, I Died for You
Neil Young, The Needle and the Damage Done
Uriah Heep, The Park
Uriah Heep, Come Away Melinda
Black Sabbath, Planet Caravan
Pink Floyd, Julia Dream. Could easily just list a hundred PF songs, but this ones as close to ballad as they come. All their songs are pretty mellow, but I don't consider them soft rock either.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. Probably see a bunch later y'all will post that will make me smack myself for not thinking of though lol

Troublezone wrote:

If I listen to some softer music once in a while and refresh my ears from the monotony, it tends to help me appreciate the metal and heavy shit again.

It’s just balance.

I do the same thing but I usually indulge my more soulful or jazzy side (or some Pink Floyd like Wrecked) as a diversion from the harder music.

And to be clear, most of the songs I picked are based on nostalgia and the music. I know a lot of the lyrics are cheesy.

Troublezone wrote:

And to be clear, most of the songs I picked are based on nostalgia and the music. I know a lot of the lyrics are cheesy.

Oh, tell it true! You know you sit and listen to them under a single candle in the dark, holding your knees to your chest, rocking back and forth, crying like a teenage girl that just lost her first love to another man. Don't lie now!!!

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Troublezone wrote:

And to be clear, most of the songs I picked are based on nostalgia and the music. I know a lot of the lyrics are cheesy.

Oh, tell it true! You know you sit and listen to them under a single candle in the dark, holding your knees to your chest, rocking back and forth, crying like a teenage girl that just lost her first love to another man. Don't lie now!!!

Darn it!

Oh, and I forgot my favorite 70s soft rock artist (although to be fair he had quite a few harder rockin' tunes too):

Elton John

I've seen EJ live 5 times, more than any other artist of any genre.  One of my favorite artists period and one of the few I could do karaoke to because many of his tunes fall into my vocal range and I already know all the lyrics.

But I'd still have to be pretty drunk to do it.

I appreciate his talent, but I’m not a big fan...

I’m not big on the “piano men” Elton and Billy Joel.

A favorite of mine is Arcade's Cry No More.

007 wrote:

A favorite of mine is Arcade's Cry No More.

Arcade is the band with Stephen Pearcy from Ratt right? I’ll check it out. I haven’t heard that band since they debuted almost 30 years ago.

Troublezone wrote:

007 wrote:

A favorite of mine is Arcade's Cry No More.

Arcade is the band with Stephen Pearcy from Ratt right? I’ll check it out. I haven’t heard that band since they debuted almost 30 years ago.

That's them. The song is off their debut.

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Some songs that come to mind I like, and in actuality I don't consider hardly any of these ballads, just mellow and chill:

Scorpions, Holiday, and Still Loving you
Laaz Rockit, The Omen
Judas Priest, Here comes the tears
Blue Oyster Cult, Then Came the last Days of May
Iced Earth, I Died for You
Neil Young, The Needle and the Damage Done
Uriah Heep, The Park
Uriah Heep, Come Away Melinda
Black Sabbath, Planet Caravan
Pink Floyd, Julia Dream. Could easily just list a hundred PF songs, but this ones as close to ballad as they come. All their songs are pretty mellow, but I don't consider them soft rock either.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. Probably see a bunch later y'all will post that will make me smack myself for not thinking of though lol

Mellow and chill fits the idea I was going for. That’s why I expanded the title to include “melodic rock”. Just anything under that general umbrella.

I think these fit under the “chill” description.

Sabbath - Solitude
Sabbath - Planet Caravan
Testament - Return to Serenity
Tourniquet - Officium Defunctorum

Songs that are “in between”. They have both mellow and heavy parts.

Pantera - Cemetery Gates
Pantera - Hollow
Testament - The Ballad
Testament - The Legacy
Testament - Trail of Tears
Overkill - The Years of Decay
Overkill - Soulitude
Flotsam & Jetsam - Escape From Within

How about this one? I liked this song so much I bought the album but unfortunately this was the only song on it I enjoyed:

tohostudios wrote:

How about this one?  I liked this song so much I bought the album but unfortunately this was the only song on it I enjoyed:

That’s cool.

Alan Parsons had a lot of them in that decade too.  I like the whole Turn Of A Friendly Card album.  Not a fan of I Robot though (I noticed Eye In THe Sky in the original list and that's somewhere between those two albums for me).

tohostudios wrote:

Alan Parsons had a lot of them in that decade too.  I like the whole Turn Of A Friendly Card album.  Not a fan of I Robot though (I noticed Eye In THe Sky in the original list and that's somewhere between those two albums for me).

Yep, he did. He has a very dark songwriting style. I think he was friends with the guys in Pink Floyd.

Boston - Amanda
Cinderella - Nobody's Fool

But ultimately it's REO Speedwagon that rules when it comes to power ballads.

This song has a very sad almost suicidal feeling to it.