Word: ballading
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...British seize the Indian kingdom of Avadh, and Lagaan, a crowd-pleaser nominated for an Oscar in 2002, in which the Indians thrash the British at cricket. But these are the exceptions. Most Bollywood films focus predictably on ishq?love?and little else. The travails of The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey, India's most ambitious historical movie in years, show...
...most part, they've been stripped of cuteness and nostalgia. What strikes you first is that the sad songs are really sad. At the Mercy gets past the sentimental and into the startling fact that genuine love can leave you powerless and insecure. Riding to Vanity Fair, a trippy ballad about rejected friendship, is the most misanthropic thing the composer of Ob-La-Di has ever recorded. He insists it's not directed at anyone in particular, and the lyrics--"You're not aware/ Of what you put me through/ But now the feeling's gone"--don't offer...
What makes Plans bearable--and sometimes even better than that--is extremely tight music. Death Cab's previous albums were always listenable but rarely arresting or tense. On Plans, the hooks are everywhere. Someday You Will Be Loved starts like a standard ballad until an exaggerated bass line kicks up during the first verse and gentle chaos begins. Marching Bands of Manhattan builds from a single keyboard chord into something joyful enough to counter the repetitions of "your love is gonna drown." On Crooked Teeth, each instrument plays a line that, isolated, could be the basis...
Wilson shows a sensitive, but not sentimental, side on the winning ballad I Don't Feel Like Loving You Today and covers the Billie Holiday classic Good Morning Heartache in old-fashioned one-mike, one-take style. Lest anyone think she's getting classy, the title track is about being very drunk, hitting on the wrong guy and getting a tooth knocked out when "a big ole girl walked outta the blue/ 10 ft. 2 with a bad attitude." (The video features Kid Rock, the poet laureate of sloshed hookups.) "I'll never run from being trashy," says Wilson...
With a bracing lack of melodrama, Canadian Leslie Feist whisper-sings her way through a classic fadeaway ballad. The instrumentation is spare, and the lyrics are of the "Don't you wish/ We could forget that kiss" variety, but Feist's warm vocal performance makes failing relationships sound so romantic. --By Josh Tyrangiel