Word: balladeers
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...Government Center T station, racing to catch a blue line train to the airport on my way home for Christmas break, when I caught these few lyrics of Poison's classic 1988 power ballad. I hadn't heard the song in at least five years, and memories of the turn of the decade came flooding back--memories of the transition from the carefree days of elementary school to the real world of junior high, from the trusty '80s to the blank slate...
...epitomized in Madonna's "Material Girl" (1984)--to the brooding alternative explosion of Clinton's '90s, marked by Nirvana's breakthrough hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (1991). In making that leap you'd skip both the George Bush years and the apex of a key musical genre: the power ballad...
...power ballad of the late '80s was a creation of arena rock. In large, suburban arenas, so-called "hair metal" bands would take the stage amid lights and mist and hordes of adoring fans waving lighters. But though it may have been linked with the arena, the power ballad came through just fine on the car radio or on the boom box at the beach. The power ballad relied on strong, clear vocals, on lyrics that were simple and trite but always direct and plainly emotional, on the electric guitar and, most of all, on sheer volume. This wasn...
...power ballad emerged out of the male rock of the '70s, from the heavy metal of Alice Cooper to the classic rock of Styx. The first power ballads to make it big in the '80s were hits like "Faithfully" (1983) by the five-man band Journey. But the genre didn't gain mass-market success until the mid-'80s. In 1985, REO Speedwagon recorded the classic "Can't Fight This Feeling." In 1986, Bon Jovi--with their big hair, rugged but soft looks and ordinary-guy sensibility--hit No. 1 with "Livin' on a Prayer." And a year later, Starship...
...producers, including Sean ("Puffy") Combs (who's worked with rapper the Notorious B.I.G.), Jermaine Dupri (Mariah Carey, Usher), and Lauryn Hill (of the hip-hop band the Fugees). Still, this is Aretha's show. Numbers like the cardiotonic title track urge female self-esteem; another song, the sweetly epiphanous ballad Love Pang, links the everyday chores of life to recollections of romance. Franklin talked with TIME in her hometown of Detroit...