Rolling Stone Readers Pick the Best Ballads of All Time

Rolling Stone Magazine ^ | Andy Greene

[ConservativeStatement]

Last week we asked our readers to vote for their favorite ballad or slow jam of all time. Votes were all over the place – from tracks by Pearl Jam to Elvis Presley to Lionel Richie. In the end it was very close, and there was a tie so we had to expand our standard top 10 to a top 12. If this survey has reinforced anything, it's that our readers really, really love Led Zeppelin.

[wardaddy]

I heard Marty’s Love Me, Or Leave Me Alone the other day on WSM...what a song.

My dad knew Marty...nice man.

[buccaneer81]

An embarrassment to KISS? Really? Is such a thing even possible?

I just can't imagine Gene being thrilled with the idea. A song like that on an album like "Destroyer" just reeks of record company marketing pressure to appeal to chicks.

[Yaelle]

Best heartbreak song Ever.

[sand lake bar]

Marty Robbins was the best.

Now, how about Gogi Grant’s, “The Wayward Wind” ?

[buccaneer81]

Richard Harris should have stuck to S&M Indian hooks-in-the-chest movies. He sure as hell can’t sing.

They ALL thought they could sing back then...

[Zman516]

Green Green Grass Of Home — Tom Jones
Delilah — Tom Jones
El Paso - Marty Robbins

[buccaneer81]

Definitions change over time, I guess.

Pop and rock ballads

To emphasize the emotional aspect of a power ballad, crowds customarily hold up lit lighters.[29][30]

The most common use of the term ballad in modern pop music is for an emotional love song.[31] When the word ballad appears in the title of a song, as for example in The Beatles's "The Ballad of John and Yoko" or Billy Joel's "The Ballad of Billy the Kid", the folk-music sense is generally implied. Ballad is also sometimes applied to strophic story-songs more generally, such as Don McLean's "American Pie".[32] [edit] Power ballads

Simon Frith identifies the origins of the power ballad in the emotional singing of soul artists, particularly Ray Charles and the adaptation of this style by figures such as Eric Burdon, Tom Jones and Joe Cocker to produce slow tempo songs often building to a loud and emotive chorus backed by drums, electric guitars and sometimes choirs.[33] According to Charles Aaron, power ballads came into existence in the early 1970s, when rock stars attempted to convey profound messages to audiences.[34] He argues that the power ballad broke into the mainstream of American consciousness in 1976 as FM radio gave a new lease of life to earlier songs like Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" (1971), Aerosmith's "Dream On" (1973), and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" (1974).[34] Other notable examples include Nazareth's version of "Love Hurts" (1975), Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is",[33] Scorpions "Still Loving You", (both 1984), Heart's "What About Love" (1985)[35] and Whitesnake's "Is This Love" (1987).[36]

[fso301]

1.) Ballad of the Green Berets - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH4-tOqLH94

2.) Sink the Bismarck - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EdngnDdjCo

3.) Johnny Reb - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VknxL_we6PY

4.) Ode to Billy Joe - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZt5Q-u4crc

5.) El Paso - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T9OeN3t37Y

[buccaneer81]

Turn of a Friendly Card might actually be the most underrated LP of all time. It is one of the few albums where every track is excellent. Nobody has ever heard of it.

I agree. "Time" was on Top 40 radio in the summer of '81, then I discovered the album that fall in college...it was played beginning to end a few times on the campus radio station (that's when I became a supporter of the annual $15 student activity fee for the station.)

[SZonian]

Little River Band?

[SZonian]

Little River Band?

[Hotlanta Mike]

FRANK SINATRA - It was a very good year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ttLRDQ6yPI&feature=related

ONE LESS BELL TO ANSWER THE FIFTH DIMENSION

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzWPZP0iVlE&feature=related

[buccaneer81]

Killed in '81 when his VW Beetle got crushed by a big semi on NJ turnpike,

Close. He was on the Long Island Expressway in his VW Rabbit and had a heart attack which caused the accident with the truck. (I remember it well as it happened on my Dad's birthday.)

[Eagle9]

Robert Mitchum - Thunder Road

Roger Miller - King of the Road just to name one.

Red Sovine - Phantom 309 and many others.

Johnny Cash - A Boy Named Sue

[Lazlo in PA]

That is interesting. $5500 isn't to much more than the car would be worth if Fred Huffdingle from Sandusky OH had owned it. The other unusual thing about the car is it is a woodgrain delete car. Most T&C's had woodgrain. The guy got a real good deal on that car. I think it is funny that a Commie Lib like Lennon was tooling around in the biggest production car you could buy in '70 with a 440 4 barrel.

[Patsygirl]

No “Battle of New Orleans”! What’s the world coming to?

[Eagle9]

My memory fails me every now and then. “Taxi” got a lot of air time on WMC FM 100, an album oriented 100,000 watt station back then, when I was discharged from the Army in 1972.

[okie01]

Hoagy Carmichael wrote and I heard him sing it, but it is a great song, covered by just about everyone at one time or another after it came out

I'm sorry for the young sprouts. But the golden age of songwriting was in the thirties and forties.

Hoagy Carmichael was far from the best songwriter of his era. Because, after Stardust and Georgia On My Mind, what did he do? A bunch of novelties...???

But there was, for example, Cole Porter -- whose "Best of" could consume hours and hours of listening. And Johnny Mercer. And literally a hundred songs that were among the best ever.

You might be interested in this:

Songwriters Hall of Fame

Everybody is invited to check out the Cole Porter page(s).

[dfwgator]

ONE LESS BELL TO ANSWER THE FIFTH DIMENSION

I was so in love with Marilyn McCoo when I was younger.

She and Billy have been married now for over 40 years, a rare successful marriage in the business.

[mojitojoe]

Truly a WTF moment.