Word: ballade
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...director-choreographer Robert Longbottom (Christmas shows for the Rockettes). The show percolates best in a couple of brisk, ersatz-vaudeville numbers (one features dancing Egyptians, swan-shaped harps and a crocodile) and in a soul-inflected showstopper, The Devil You Know. And there's at least one anthem-like ballad, Who Will Love Me As I Am? that should have Whitney Houston on the phone to her agent...
...band made an abrupt transition in tempo and mood as Redman began a long cadenza to preface the ballad, "What's New?" Here his very slow, almost imperceptible vibrato and airy, floating tone were vividly apparent. He played several motifs in different octaves, never once hinting that he might be performing at the extreme registers of his instrument. After the drums made a discreet entrance, and the delicate melody had been presented, McBride picked up a bow and displayed a facet of his amazing versatility as he coaxed a lush, sustained solo from his instrument...
...from an abusive boyfriend. Jackson occasionally relies too heavily on others--Got 'Til It's Gone draws smartly on Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi (credited) but clumsily on Des'ree's Feel So High (uncredited). She is more creative on her cooing cover of Rod Stewart's deflowering ballad Tonight's the Night. She directs the lyrics toward another woman and turns the song into an anthem of sexual liberation. At the end, a man joins in for a menage a trois. She downloads her inhibitions and challenges ours...
...slow-building, slow-burning pleasure. This is soul lite, harking back to the '70s, to Barry White, Roberta Flack and Diana Ross. The song Never, Never Gonna Give You Up evokes the throb of disco, but in a comely, cooing, classic way; Honest is a soul-baring ballad with an intimate, unadorned sound that leaves Stansfield's voice free to shimmer in the foreground; and I Cried My Last Tear, Last Night is an unabashed I-won't-get-stepped-on-in-relationships call to arms that makes its case passionately but not gratingly. Although the album...
...guessed right! How could anyone escape this opening lyric from the Verve Pipe's overplayed "The Freshmen"? This is not to say I'm complaining-the infectious, melancholic ballad will always be welcome wherever I go. It speaks of the naivete that saturated every waking moment of my summer vacation and holds within its simple, emotional guitar lines flash frames of countless good times I had with friends...