Kids today don’t understand the grip that power ballads had on listeners in the 1980s, plus a few years toward the end of the 1970s and start of the 1990s. These emotional rock songs defied the norm of rock music, opting for sappy heartbreak and laments over broken hearts instead of songs about drugs and partying. Every person who went through a breakup in the 1980s likely cried it out to at least one power ballad, and I don’t blame them. Let’s look at a few particularly memorable power ballads from the music trend’s heyday, shall we?
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“Babe” by Styx (1979)
This early power ballad can be found on Styx’ 1979 album Cornerstone, and what a power ballad it is. “Babe” peaked at No. 1 in the US, their only song to do so. Written by Dennis DeYoung as an ode to his wife, Suzanne, and the rest of the world resonated with it. Interestingly enough, “Babe” was not originally intended to be a Styx song, by members J.Y. Young and Tommy Shaw convinced DeYoung to fork it over. It’s a good thing they did. “Babe” remains the band’s signature song.
“Is This Love” by Whitesnake (1987)
Remember this power ballad from Whitesnake? “Is This Love” dropped at what I would consider the peak of the power ballad craze, and it managed to stick out enough to hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1987. This glam metal power ballad is very of its time, and according to songwriter David Coverdale, it wasn’t originally written as a Whitesnake song. Rather, he was asked by a friend at EMI to write a song for Tina Turner, resulting in “Is This Love”. He ended up using the song for his own band, and it was a smart move in the end.
Songfacts: Is This Love? | Whitesnake
Coverdale and Sykes wrote “Is This Love?” during the album’s early writing process in the south of France. Before Coverdale left the UK, a friend of his at EMI told him they were looking for ideas that could work for Tina Turner. Her What’s Love Got To Do With It record had gone global, and knowing Coverdale was going away to write some songs, they told him to let them know if he came up with anything suitable for its follow-up. So when Coverdale started writing “Is This Love,” it was for Turner. As Coverdale tinkered away at the song in a French villa, Sykes overheard him and said it sounded nice. The Whitesnake frontman informed him it was for Tina Turner, not their band. “He gets his coffee, sits down and starts playing these…,” Coverdale recalled in a video. “It was just this organic thing. These ideas just fed really beautiful things that I wouldn’t have come up with. Maybe John wouldn’t have come up with the chords, but the embellishments were just part of the whole package of the song.” When Whitesnake’s then-record-label head David Geffen heard it, he told Coverdale to keep it for Whitesnake.
“November Rain” by Guns N’ Roses (1992)
This song famously took Axl Rose years to write, and the wait paid off. “November Rain”, featured on Use Your Illusion I, remains one of Guns N’ Roses’ most well-known songs. It’s likely their most well-known power ballad. It was a No. 1 smash on the Cash Box Top 100 chart in 1992, and a No. 3 hit on the Hot 100. And if you’ve heard it once, you’ll likely recognize that intro for the rest of your life.
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