Who wrote the first cheesy, crappy songs/ballads?

[Golden AWe]

Who started all this crappy powerpop and cheesy ballad stuff? Probably someone who was trying to write something like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin or The Beach Boys, but what are your views on this?

We say Van Hagar is like Bon Jovi but I guess Van Hagar wrote crap before them? Don't care to check out when Bon Jovi started, uhuhuhuuh

Discuss.

[Mr. Vengeance]

You can look at any number of bands. Journey, Reo Speedwagon, Styx, Toto...Bands like Bread and America were purveyors of "sensitive rock"...You could throw in James Taylor and the Eagles as sort-of laid back rock. Rod Stewart would rock one song and then turn balladeer the next. It's a great big music stew.

[Mr. Vengeance]

Oh, and don't forget 70's bands like Angel.

[PlexiBrown]

What year did Kiss do "Beth"?

[Jérôme Frenchise]

Some of them can be useful... Just play stuff like "Feels like makin' love" by Free in your car while you're driving a chick back to her home, and you're not sure she's OK because she said she has to get up early the next morning or whatever.
Just pretend that you didn't play that intentionally, that it's only random... OK, she won't believe it, but hey, at least you'll be gaining time whatever happens. :cool:

Well, who started?... Looking back, as far as hard rock bands, I think Kiss did.
Kiss and the other groups who did the same made those glucose ballads to gather more chicks around in their gigs.
The Scorpions did so too, then almost every band...
The worst one IMO is Aerosmith's "Angel" (but it's from 1987 already)... I never could stand that thing, it's so damn long and wheezy. They were on a new start at the time, but that crap was a glimpse of what they'd commit later on.
I won't mention Van Hagar as it's too obvious.
The commercial success of guys like Peter Frampton (hhrrrhhââââââââââhhh!) certainly made many minds up about making candy ballads as well... MONEY, they need MONEY! :cool:

[FORD]

AC/DC did a song that most of you probably haven't heard back in 1974.

It was called "Love Song" and it was pretty damn sappy, actually. The last thing you would expect from Bon Scott.

But I don't think it influenced any other bands to do the same, because as I said, few people outside of Australia have ever heard it.

[Mr Badguy]

Originally posted by Mr. Vengeance
Oh, and don't forget 70's bands like Angel.

Nah, Angel didn`t really do cheesey ballads.

Super pompous synthesizer led rock was their game.

Check out stuff like "Tower", "Rock n rollers" or "Sunday morning" for proof.

Their later stuff, like the "Sinful" album, was more aimed at the radio but nothing like REO, Van Hagar or the like.

Anyhow, Angel never sold enough records to be considered influential for anything.

[Terry]

Well, to me, Beth was just a ballad.

I think in terms of Van Hagaresque power ballads, the first one I can really remember in this vein was Motley Crue and Home Sweet Home. Journey kinda had some tunes along these lines, but it really wasn't shocking when Journey did it, because Steve Perry was a great singer but was sissified all along from the get-go...

Maybe REO Speedwagon with Keep On Loving You is a bit of a precursor to Home Sweet Home (sweet Jesus, THAT REO tune got played into the fucking GROUND, man...for a period there you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing that or Joan Jetts' I Love Rock And Roll, and how about that song My Name Is Eugene, by Crazy Joe and His Variable Speed Band? Between those tunes and Pac Man Fever...well, not EVERYTHING in the early 80s was worth nostalgizing over)...

But then with REO it wasn't THAT shocking when they started churning out more ballads than usual...

I think with Van Hagar, Ed was coming off of Jump, saw how huge THAT pop 40 single was, and figured the more synth the more records sold.

In terms of hair metal power ballads, I think Motley Crue and Home Sweet Home is to blame. KISS, REO and Journey may have primed the pump, along with Styx, but that Crue song was really the template for the pap that followed.

[BITEYOASS]

Originally posted by FORD
AC/DC did a song that most of you probably haven't heard back in 1974.

It was called "Love Song" and it was pretty damn sappy, actually. The last thing you would expect from Bon Scott.

But I don't think it influenced any other bands to do the same, because as I said, few people outside of Australia have ever heard it.

Bon Scott was probably sober that day, or was it a Dave Evans song?

[monkeythe]

I'm going with Motley and Home Sweet Home also. The popularity of that song created the hair metal ballad, which was a template for Van Hagar's success.

As far as The Bon Jovi ballads, they really didn't release a successful one until 1989's New Jersey album. I wouldn't consider any of the 3 hits from Slippery When Wet to be power ballads.

[EAT MY ASSHOLE]

Well, you can always go straight back to the tunes the Everly Bros would do, which nazareth eventually had success with. Love hurts features the immortal bad line:

Love is like a stove
It burns you when it's hot

[Matt White]

Originally posted by monkeythe
I'm going with Motley and Home Sweet Home also. The popularity of that song created the hair metal ballad, which was a template for Van Hagar's success.


WE HAVE A WINNER


I fucked HATED that song...and THEATER OF PAIN SUCKED DOG BALLZ

[FORD]

Originally posted by BITEYOASS
Bon Scott was probably sober that day, or was it a Dave Evans song?

It was Bon. They didn't make any albums with Dave Evans, just a single or two.

Maybe he was sober? Or so drunk he thought he was still in his old band Fraternity?

[BITEYOASS]

Originally posted by FORD
It was Bon. They didn't make any albums with Dave Evans, just a single or two.

Maybe he was sober? Or so drunk he thought he was still in his old band Fraternity?

Yeah, makes me wanna shortcut a thread! :D

http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33888

[Mr. Vengeance]

I mean what's your definition of this? Is it only "power ballad" or any rock act that puts out a soft song? A precursor to many of them would be Sabbath, It's Alright, from Technical Ecstacy, (sung by Bill Ward)

Ozzy had Goodbye to Romance

The line is clearly blurry on this topic.

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by monkeythe
As far as The Bon Jovi ballads, they really didn't release a successful one until 1989's New Jersey album. I wouldn't consider any of the 3 hits from Slippery When Wet to be power ballads.

You forget 'Wanted Dead Or Alive' or the toe curling 'Never Say Goodbye' which were both Top 30 singles at least in Europe.

[m_dixon1984]

For earliest Hair Metal Balad I'm going to say it was Dream On by Aerosmith (1973). They were the closest thing to hair metal at the time and they certainly joined the ranks when eighties came along.

But there were so many good ones and all of which influenced the eighty Hair Metal bands...

Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
The End - The Doors
Behind Blue Eyes - The Who
Angie - The Rolling Stones
Bohemian Rhapsdody - Queen
Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Baby, I love your Way - Peter Frampton
The Flame - Cheap Trick
More than a Feeling - Boston

Just to name a few.

M

[Matt White]

"Power Ballads" came along in the 80's.....

Had their been ballads before? Sure....

Supposedly Metal ballads? With soaring metal guitar? By guys in spandex & Aqua net? No..............

There's just SO much to hate aboot Hair Metal.........

[m_dixon1984]

You wouldn't describe Aerosmith as "guys in spandex and aqua net", MW? I'll concede that the rest of my list consists of ballads by rock bands that aren't Hair Metal bands but Aerosmith, to me, are the Grandfathers of Hair Metal. Can't blame them for the blasphemy that followed.

There's no doubt that Motley Crue fits the description and that Home Sweet Home was a mega-hit of a ballad. Def Leppard was right in there in the early eighties as well and were certainly Hair Metal'ish early in the decade. Cheap Trick and their pretty boy singer had elements of Hair Metal to them as well and they certainly had ballad hits in the late seventies and early eighties. The Scorpions too, although I can't remember when they had their first hit ballad - may have been mid eighties and after Motley - but I suspect they were early Hair Metal balladeers.

I'll concede this...Motley made Hair Metal ballads a prerequisite for all eighties Metal bands. If you didn't have a music video friendly ballad on your album you weren't going to make it mainstream.

M

[Terry]

Originally posted by Matt White
"Power Ballads" came along in the 80's.....

Had their been ballads before? Sure....

Supposedly Metal ballads? With soaring metal guitar? By guys in spandex & Aqua net? No..............

There's just SO much to hate aboot Hair Metal.........

The thing to hate most about it was how all that shit somehow got called heavy metal, when that stuff was just top-40 pop tunes with distorted guitars...and how so many bands lined up to follow suit with Motley Crue