Favourite Power Ballads in Metal/Hard rock

Which band makes the best ballads?

  • Total voters
    6
Siddharth

Siddharth

Long Distance Trooper
Seeing a debate on a Maiden thread about which songs to be put under 'power ballad' category, I decided to make this thread. (Wasting Love is definitely a ballad, you punks!)

What is your definition of a power ballad? For me, it has a comparatively light instrumentation, having passages in clean tuning and often consisting of strings, acoustic guitars and even orchestral arrangements, if not always.
 
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My Top 10 Ballads (as of now):

1. Skid Row - I Remember You
2. Avenged Sevenfold - Seize The Day
3. Testament - Return To Serenity
4. Metallica - Fade To Black
5. Nevermore - The Heart Collector
6. Guns N' Roses - Don't Cry
7. Pantera - Cemetery Gates
8. Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
9. Tesla - Love Song
10. Megadeth - A Tout Le Monde

Hon'ble mentions:

X Japan - Endless Rain
Ozzy Osbourne - Life Won't Wait/Dreamer
Avenged Sevenfold - Gunslinger/So Far Away/Dear God
Testament - Trail Of Tears
Guns N' Roses - November Rain
Skid Row - 18 And Life
Velvet Revolver - Fall To Pieces
Slaughter - Days Go By
Angra - Make Believe
 
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Heart - Alone but this probably fits more under the pop hit bracket than metal/hard rock

Hard to look past I Remember You, agreed.
 
I’m a sucker for GNR and related bands, I think they have a couple of awesome ballads, as well as Slash’ solo band. So are classic Skid row, many good ballads on the first three albums
 
Amongst power ballads, Metallica's Nothing Else Matters is king, imo. The song itself, arrangement, production, even video.

edit: Fade to Black is great also but is a different kind of beast. (Not real ballad, imo)
 
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I´d add Europe too.
Carrie, Open Your Heart, I´ll Cry For You,...
Fantastic songs!
And I know they´re not metal or hardrock but Roxette made a few nice ones too: Fading Like A Flower, Listen To Your Heart.
 
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Kalata said:
The band which makes the best ballads? Probably Scorpions. But many other bands have, you can't go wrong with metal ballads.
Click to expand...
Scorpions probably did the most, but not all of them are good. Pretty much most of them are very cheesy piles of... well... cheese.
Metal ballads and Power Ballads are NOT the same, by the way.

My fave picks:
Cinderella - Nobody's Fool
Scorpions - When the Smoke Is Going Down
Accept - Amamos La Vida
Judas Priest - Prisoner of Your Eyes
Skid Row - 18 And Life
Cinderella - Don't Know What You`ve Got Til It`s Gone
Dokken - Alone Again
Heart - Alone
Europe - Carrie
Kiss - Reason To Live
L.A. Guns - Crystal Eyes (truely underrated gem)
Riot - In Your Eyes
The Almighty - Jesus Loves You But I Don't

Bon Jovi and Aerosmith suck at ballads. Too much sugar, trying too hard. Guns N Roses are good at it, but too overplayed. Metallica sometimes pulled it off, but Nothing Else Matters can bite my cheesy ass. The Unforgiven is far superior. FWTBT is too thrashy in the second half to count as real ballad. Same with Sanitarium. Also the same with Metal Church - Watch The Children Pray, which wipes the floor with every ballad Metallica ever did.

In the poll, I would consider Skid Row as the best ballad band, but my personal best is not even in the pool (Cinderella). Avenged Sevenfold should not even be mentioned with the other legends. What a crap band.
 
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