Word: balladic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Choke beautiful, CHOKE beautiful" were Steve Wong's description of one of the ballad's performed. I couldn't have said it better myself. ("choke beautiful" meaning "totally beautiful.") During the dance, I glanced around the packed room and there was literally a glow on the faces of the audience as they watched the slow ballad. The audience was mesmerized by the graceful, lyrical movements of the hula dancers hands, the rhythmic sways, their radiant smiles, set to the beautiful and haunting lyrics of Keali'i Reichel and a sole acoustic guitar. Later, the tempo picked up with the resounding...
...seconds tick away, she realizes that she's humming quietly and tapping her feet to a nearby rhythm. She can't help but turn her head to catch a glance at the musician sitting on the bench several feet to her left. He plays a familiar Stevie Wonder love ballad, one she's heard on the radio from time to time during the morning show on "Lite" 106.7 FM. Soon, despite herself, she's actually singing along, and swaying to the beat. As her train pulls in, she digs through her green fanny pack for some change, and drops...
...tastes were on full display. She charged through a pop-rock composition she co-wrote titled Sin So Well, and she romped through an R.-and-B.-flavored cover of the Rolling Stones' Get Off of My Cloud. Afterward, she quieted the crowd and sang another original, the introspective ballad Little Black Girl. "It's a minor miracle just to make it to your graduation/when nowhere in your world is there a hint of validation," she sang. "This is not political, it's personal." She told the audience that the song, of all the ones on her album...
...biggest problem with Powers' analysis of the power ballad, however, is that she thinks it is still alive, in the form of recent songs such as The Verve's "The Freshmen," Matchbox 20's "Push" and the Ben Folds Five's "Brick." Powers writes: "Recently...the meaning of the power ballad has changed as the age of heroes gives way to more conflicted protagonists." But these mid-'90s songs do not belong in the same category as the ballads of the turn-of-the-decade. In content, they are too angst-ridden...
...older bands did manage to outlive the alternative craze. Aerosmith's "Crazy," "Cryin''' and "Amazing" (1993) may be more remembered for featuring Alicia Silverstone in their videos, but these hits also kept the power ballad alive in the '90s. The soaring melody and shamelessly hackneyed lyrics of Bon Jovi's 1994 hit "Always" made it one of the most perfect power ballads ever. And in 1995, Van Halen chipped in with the confident "Can't Stop Lovin' You." Still, with Steven Tyler headed for membership in the American Association of Retired Persons and with Jon Bon Jovi headed nowhere, given...