Word: ballads
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...song “In My Arms” from Rufus’ first album, Rufus Wainwright, displays the haunting quality of his voice perfectly. A sort of ballad, “In My Arms” begins with Rufus singing alone with only the accompaniment of a few chords on an acoustic guitar. “You gave me all your loving one day, you gave it all and almost faded away,” sings Rufus. The song builds from there, blossoming into a rich harmony with background vocals, electric guitar, strings and drums. Rufus repeats...
...Spark” greets with random electronica samples from the mid-1980s, but then rolls over into an upbeat, self-confessing rocker that is quintessential road music. Instead of upping the ante, Benson then moves down a gear into “Metarie,” a frankly earnest ballad about the first, halting steps of a burgeoning relationship. Folky guitars, ascending chromatic tones and backing-singer Emma J’s plaintive voice lend the track a haunting, ethereal quality, but for want of a female vocalist, “Metarie” unfortunately didn’t make...
...What'll I Do?", 1924. This ballad of love and longing has a clever bridge that repeats, then elaborates on the chorus; the entire song rises and falls with the mood (first mopey, then insistently desperate) of a lovelorn swain. It was a #1 hit for Paul Whiteman and had five other top-12 renditions in 1924. Twenty-four years later the song went to #22 for Nat Cole and #23 for Frank Sinatra. It was also a minor charter for Johnny Tillotson in 1962 - 38 years later...
...Berlin, suffering from a bout of self-doubt, had written, then written off this pleading ballad (along with another plaint, "How Deep Is the Ocean?"). Then a Berlin associate let megaphone man Rudy Vallee perform it on his radio show. The song was a #1 hit for George Olsen and awarded top-10 perches to versions by Connee Boswell and Ozzie Nelson?s band. In her pop-diva phase, Aretha Franklin had a minor flurry with her single of the song in 1963 - 31 years later...
...tune about sunbelt nostalgia for a snowbelt youth (the verse places the singer in "Beverly Hills, L.A."). A journalist friend told the composer that "White Christmas" wouldn?t be a hit because it was "too schmaltzy," and Berlin himself thought the movie's big hit would be the Valentine ballad "Be Careful, It's My Heart...