Categories: Music

Power Ballads of the ’80s

Bangle bracelets, baggy sweatshirts, men’s shirts and mini skirts, and a decade of teased big hair on both men and women: the ’80s. The ’80s were a decade of color and style, though not necessarily of class. From pushed-up dress jacket sleeves and wild dangling earring to colored pumps and tight, painted-on jeans the only good thing that might still linger from the ’80s was the advent of the power ballad.

Big haired bands and metal music combined to form the power ballads of the ’80s, a way for the metal bands to break into the ‘pop’ scene and become known on the radio and Top 40 charts of the time. These metal bands needed to become known, but the pop stations of the day weren’t playing their music and there weren’t many if any metal and hard rock stations at the time. The metal and hard rock bands had a core group of cult followers, but record sales don’t bring fame and stardom and riches for small followings.

To get known and draw a crowd in to listen to their albums, these metal and hard rock bands created the power ballad: a combination of harder tones, metal sounds, but softened for a more melodic tune. The power ballads usually told a story, tended toward being longer than the traditional 2 1/2 minute songs, and often had a wailing guitar solo that punctuated the middle of the song. Usually tales of love or lost love, the power ballads made their way into the Top 40 charts of the ’80s and are now part of the iconic memories of the decade spanning from 1980-1898.

To commemorate these power ballads of the ’80s, VH1, a television cable station dedicated to music videos and music history, has created a set of all-time favorite power ballads from the ’80s in their collect: VH1: The Big ’80s Power Ballads.

Included on this collector’s set of ’80s music and power ballads, you will find:

Fly To The Angels – performed by: Slaughter

Something To Believe In – performed by: Poison

Amanda – performed by: Boston

I Want To Know What Love Is – performed by: Foreigner

Alone Again – performed by: Dokken

House Of Pain – performed by: Faster Pussycat

The Search Is Over – performed by: Survivor

Is This Love – performed by: Whitesnake

We Belong – performed by: Pat Benatar

Don’t Close Your Eyes – performed by: Kix

What Does It Take – performed by: Honeymoon Suite

Missing You – performed by: John Waite

Miles Away – performed by: Winger

When The Children Cry – performed by: White Lion

Goodbye – performed by: Night Ranger

Fly High Michelle – performed by: Enuff Z’nuff

These power ballads of the ’80s are commonly referred to on music sites as being songs that are ‘Tough and Tender’, that tell a story with a hard edge and sound, while still being soft. That’s a hard feat to accomplish and these ’80s power ballads do just that.

Each of these songs can be purchased individually for less than a buck on locations like Amazon.com and iTunes in an MP3 or other audio format.

To purchase the entire album, you can visit Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Hastings, Walmart, Target or other online or retail locations that sell music. If you can’t find it in a store, check their online site and if you can’t find it there, take the album name to any music store and they can order a copy in for you at the suggested retail price.