Which Maiden songs we should consider as a ballads/power ballads ?

how is Wasted Years not being mentioned here more? to me that is THE definitive (if few) Maiden power ballads! all about longing for home and and the love you left behind and of course growing older etc etc
 
R@inmaker said:
how is Wasted Years not being mentioned here more? to me that is THE definitive (if few) Maiden power ballads! all about longing for home and and the love you left behind and of course growing older etc etc
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Wasted Years does not strike me at all as a ballad, or power ballad. Very few of Maiden’s songs do, since they’re almost always just a bit too heavy (wasting love) or a bit too fast (wasted years) to be ballad material.
 
yeah, i guess i'm more just playing along with the "IF you had to label any Maiden songs power ballads..." argument. i agree, Madien has never really done a power ballad or ballad for that matter...just not their thing and probably a big reason why they've always been "true metal" despite trend/fashion etc
 
As far as I can tell, these are Maiden’s ballads:

  • Remember Tomorrow
  • Strange World
  • Prodigal Son
  • Children of the Damned
  • Revelations
  • No Prayer for the Dying
  • Afraid to Shoot Strangers
  • Wasting Love
  • Fortunes of War
  • The Aftermath
  • Judgement of Heaven
  • 2 AM
  • Lightning Strikes Twice
  • The Educated Fool
  • Como Estais Amigos
  • Blood Brothers
  • Dream of Mirrors
  • No More Lies
  • Face in the Sand
  • Journeyman
  • Out of the Shadows
  • Coming Home
  • When the Wild Wind Blows
  • The Man of Sorrows
  • Empire of the Clouds
But there’s room for discussion.
 
That would make one hell of a compilation album! Although I have one question for you: Lightning Strikes Twice a ballad?
 
Diesel 11 said:
As far as I can tell, these are Maiden’s ballads:

  • Remember Tomorrow
  • Strange World
  • Prodigal Son
  • Children of the Damned
  • Revelations
  • No Prayer for the Dying
  • Afraid to Shoot Strangers
  • Wasting Love
  • Fortunes of War
  • The Aftermath
  • Judgement of Heaven
  • 2 AM
  • Lightning Strikes Twice
  • The Educated Fool
  • Como Estais Amigos
  • Blood Brothers
  • Dream of Mirrors
  • No More Lies
  • Face in the Sand
  • Journeyman
  • Out of the Shadows
  • Coming Home
  • When the Wild Wind Blows
  • The Man of Sorrows
  • Empire of the Clouds
But there’s room for discussion.
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To me a power ballad type song should contain the following: The song should start with a verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure with at least the verses being acoustic only. And the choruses need to have strong, powerful vocal parts/hooks. So, any songs with a slow acoustic intro that turn into electric not long after don't qualify. Songs such as Children Of The Damned and Dream Of Mirrors would qualify since they both have a good part of the song that follows the structure. Now, if you're talking simply a ballad or songs that have good portions of ballad type parts, then songs like No Prayer For The Dying, Afraid To Shoot Strangers and Empire Of The Clouds would qualify. But songs like Revelations, The Aftermath, No More Lies, and Face In The Sand have too much electric guitar in them.
 
Diesel 11 said:
As far as I can tell, these are Maiden’s ballads:

  • Remember Tomorrow
  • Strange World
  • Prodigal Son
  • Children of the Damned
  • Revelations
  • No Prayer for the Dying
  • Afraid to Shoot Strangers
  • Wasting Love
  • Fortunes of War
  • The Aftermath
  • Judgement of Heaven
  • 2 AM
  • Lightning Strikes Twice
  • The Educated Fool
  • Como Estais Amigos
  • Blood Brothers
  • Dream of Mirrors
  • No More Lies
  • Face in the Sand
  • Journeyman
  • Out of the Shadows
  • Coming Home
  • When the Wild Wind Blows
  • The Man of Sorrows
  • Empire of the Clouds
But there’s room for discussion.
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As far as I can tell, you have no idea of what a ballad is :cool:
 
The most power ballad-like Maiden songs I can think of are like... "Wasting Love" and "Coming Home".

Clear-cut power ballads are for me songs like "The Flame" by Cheap Trick and "Alone Again" by Dokken.

In the end though, I don't think Maiden has done any song that's a true power ballad or true anything else.
 
Strange Worlds, Prodigal Son, Wasting Love and Coming Home are the closest to power ballad material Maiden have managed and even then do they really class as power ballads?

These are what I constitute a power ballad as;

Foreigner - "I Want to Know What Love Is"
Whitesnake - "Is This Love"
REO Speedwagon - "Can't Fight This Feeling"
Bryan Adams - "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)"
Toto - "Africa"

You get the idea. THOSE are power ballads.
R@inmaker said:
how is Wasted Years not being mentioned here more? to me that is THE definitive (if few) Maiden power ballads! all about longing for home and and the love you left behind and of course growing older etc etc
Click to expand...
Wasted Years is a mid tempo rocker with a stadium rock chorus. It is absolutely not a power ballad.
 
if you read all my comments i agreed that Maiden has NEVER actually written a power ballad. WY is thematically similar to power ballads in that is about love/longing/loss. they often touch on the latter two but NEVER hit on love but Adrian was clearly writing a letter back home with that song. as for what i personally feel are good examples of power ballads? "house of pain" - faster pussycat, "every rose has its thorn" - poison, "don't close your eyes" - kix, "slipping away" - dokken. what do they have in common? LEGIT power chords (sorry, that eliminates Toto, Bryan Adams, REO and Foreigner for me) and earnest attempts to get into womens' pants :yey:
 
Let's see what we have here. If you put 'definition of ballad' in google you get two modern definitions - one is a 'folk ballad', which is a folk tale over music in short stanzas. For instance, "jozin z bazin" would be a ballad of that type, Irish folk songs, etc. Someone goes somewhere and this and that happens to him. The other type is a pop definition which is almost exclusively tied to sentimental, romantic affairs. "a slow sentimental or romantic song.". The third, more older definition would be "dance music", e.g. music to dance to.

None of this is applicable to any Maiden song.

If you think songs like Children of the Damned fit the description of the narrative ballad, e.g. folk ballad, they don't. This is a snippet from one of those ballads

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling
"Michael, they have taken you away
For you stole Trevelyan's corn
So the young might see the morn
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay"
Low lie the fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly
Our love was on the wing we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry
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So lyrics about vague emotions and abstract things, COTD, Wasting Love, do not apply. There needs to be a real story behind it.

The giveaway about folk ballads is 0 classical structure, the musical fabula is non existing. They sing the verses backed by some traditional instruments. So even if COTD was fully acoustic and had straightforward lyrics like depicted above, it still wouldn't fit, due to the arrangement.

About the second and third definition, love songs, dance songs, well you be the judge of that.

Dickinson's solo career is another matter. Arc of Space is clean example of #1. TOAD is a good example of 'love' sort, with an added instrumental section, so you might call it a power ballad.
 
Maturin said:
Can we not agree uniformly to stop using acronyms/abbreviations?
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Lmao no. If you think someone is going to write "Loneliness of the long distance runner" three times in a sentence, you're wrong...
 
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