Bands like Rush and AC/DC wear as a badge of honor the fact that they’ve never written or performed a power ballad. I love them both, but they’re pussies. The power ballad is to rock and roll what Al Pacino in Scarface is to acting. The artist has little use for subtlety or restraint — emotion is laid bare, put forth in the most emotive manner possible. In power ballads, the tempo slows; the guitars come to the fore; the notes the singer sings echo and elongate for miles and miles. When done well, the result is beautiful in its pure, overblown glory, enabling the audience to say “hello” to the band’s leetle friend, usually with lighters held aloft.

Every two weeks or so, I will pay tribute to the finest examples of the genre. Together, we will find this death by power ballad to be an exquisite one, indeed. — RS

My vote for greatest rock and roll song of all time goes to the Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” It’s got it all: its guitars are loud and its lyrics filthy, sung in broken English by a bunch of long-haired yet still balding German dudes with names like Klaus and Matthias. The album it came from, Love at First Sting, was chock full of likewise loud, enormous-sounding, German-accented rawk songs like “Big City Nights,” “I’m Leaving You,” and “Bad Boys Running Wild” (cuz the Scorps were not good boys; good boys would never do such a thing).

The same record also contained “Still Loving You,” one of the great power ballads of the ’80s — one you typically see on Volume 2 of the typical multi-disc set of Hard Rock Ballads” or “Metal Hits” or other bargain bin product. Rarely does it make the cut for the first volume, which is typically crowded with Whitesnake, Warrant, and Winger shit. More about them some other time.

“Still Loving You” is six and a half minutes of slow-building rock ballad pleading, the kind of groveling that guys only do when they’ve fucked up really bad. Really bad. Bad, as in you sleep with your girlfriend’s best friend, in the bed you share with your girlfriend, on your girlfriend’s side of the bed, using your girlfriend’s “toys” and her brand new candle from Bath and Body Works, and instead of cleaning up the sticky, smelly, waxy mess afterward, you just throw the comforter over it and leave your girlfriend a note, asking her to please throw the sheets in the wash when she gets a chance. That kind of bad. (more…)