Power ballads are the musical equivalent of marmite; you either love them or you hate them.
We understand the objection towards this brand of music, we really do. Power ballads are among the most dated musical genre around but, as we saw this week when 80s queen Bonnie Tyler announced an appearance at Electric Picnic, so many people still find them appealing thirty years after their heyday.
A decent power ballad will always have a relatively simple formula behind it. Let's be honest here, it's not the most diverse genre of music and the best examples can generally be separated into two very distinctive categories: fist pumpers or tearjerkers.
Fist pumpers are filled with hope, desire and optimism. They're all about something happening "tonight", in that the protagonist "really needs you tonight" or "can't wait for tonight" and is just generally very excited about the potential events which may occur in his or her short-term future.
Tearjerkers, on the other hand, lament loss and are almost always constructed in the past tense. The protagonist is usually upset about something too, be it a lost love or an unrequited desire and isn't too optimistic about turning things around.
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What unites the two types of power ballad is pure, unadulterated passion. Fist pumpers and tearjerkers both unequivocally wear their heart on their sleeve, not really surprising when you consider that there wasn't much room for subtlety in the neon, spandex, permed-hair world of the 80s.
We've dipped into the archives (read: YouTube) to delve through five of the best examples of this most emotive of musical movements.
Meat Loaf - 'I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth)'
Classification: Tearjerker
Ah, the 80s... They sure don't make 'em like this anymore. Meat Loaf was one of the finest purveyors of what could be described as "emotionally manipulative" music. Over the course of his career he made such claims as he "would do anything for love", but "not that" and in this he'd "lie for you and that's the truth" (see what he did there?). They video too is amazingly and completely overblown too. Fantastic stuff.
Bonnie Tyler - 'Holding Out For A Hero'
Classification: Fist pumper
Some might point to 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' being Bonnie Tyler's best power ballad but those people are just flat out wrong. This song is power ballad royalty and contains almost everything necessary to place this highly any self-respecting list of the genre's best. Drowned in 80s synth and a fantastic 'oooh, oooh, aaahh' refrain, Bonnie sings about looking for a "street wise Hercules" who, if you're to believe the video, turns out to be a cowboy. Of course he is.
Heart - 'Alone'
Classification: Fist pumper AND tearjerker
You want to know how to make a really successful power ballad? Figure out a way to include elements of both the tearjerker and fist pumper elements and include them in one song and that's exactly what Heart managed to do for their 80s epic 'Alone'. The song begins with a solemn piano during which our protagonist outlines her misery but then, as if by magic, the chorus bursts into life with the power of a 1,000 Simply Red choruses and sets the pulses raising. Oh, and THAT key change!
Celine Dion - 'Think Twice'
Classification: Tearjerker
The perfect storm of a power ballad, this song has all the necessary ingredients to propel it towards the top of the tearjerker charts: soft piano playing, a mournful "no, no, no" bridge and Celine's humungous voice behind the microphone. This is one of the greats, in that it succinctly defines the genre that it represents and utterly divides its audience into separate love and hate factions. Good luck getting that chorus out of your head, too.
Journey - 'Don't Stop Believin'
Classification: Fist pumper
A piano heavy intro, soulful introspective lyrics, a guitar solo and one hell of an optimistic chorus - yep, this is a fist pumper alright. This is one of those songs that many of us honestly don't remember hearing for the first time; it's just engrained into your brain seemingly from birth. Oddly, the song wasn't a particular hit in Europe when it was first released but has since gone on to become staple listening on easy listening radio stations (and karaoke booths) the world over.
So it's Friday afternoon and we want to know what gets your vote as the best power ballad or 1980s classic. And extra points if you send us a tweet of you singing...
