"Sweet Child 'O Mine" is not a power ballad!

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Is it? In the new Blender Jon Caramanica identifies it as such, and he certainly is not the first writer to do so. Maybe I'm on 'ludes but I always want to dance when I hear it. At least shimmy a little.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 21:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, it's pretty fuckin' fast for a ballad!

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 21:38 (eighteen years ago) link

"velocity ballad"

― don't be jerk, this is china (FE7), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 21:39 (eighteen years ago) link

It's gotta be around, what, 110 bpm?

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 21:40 (eighteen years ago) link

"ballad" by association: expresses humanity, vulnerability, sentimentality, therefore ballad according to writers

― lkjdsfkljdsf ljkfsljkdsf, Tuesday, 20 September 2005 21:49 (eighteen years ago) link

You are right, Blender is lazy. Expressions o'passion alone do not a power ballad make.

(xpost)

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 21:50 (eighteen years ago) link

"Ballad" by association: expresses story of Medieval bloke who gets fucked over by love/misfortune. Hey! It Fits!

― I Oppose All Rock and Roll (noodle vague), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 21:53 (eighteen years ago) link

i've always thot of it as a power ballad

― H (Heruy), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 22:12 (eighteen years ago) link

LOTS of power ballads are danceable! What's weird about that?

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 20 September 2005 23:07 (eighteen years ago) link

I guess I've always thought of a power ballad as starting acoustically and ending electrically

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link

It's totally a power ballad. As is "Patience," for that matter.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 23:36 (eighteen years ago) link

"Patience," sure. But power ballads are for slow dancing! "Every Rose Has It's Thorn," "Heaven," "Beth," "Nobody's Fool." Doesn't a rock ballad have to be sort of slow?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 00:45 (eighteen years ago) link

the use of the term "ballad" to describe anything other than a narrative poem detailing the heroic progress of an individual is pretty dodgy anyway

― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 01:17 (eighteen years ago) link

What about Russ Ballad?

― I Oppose All Rock and Roll (noodle vague), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 01:18 (eighteen years ago) link

power ballads are the white slow jam! come on now people

― strng hlkngtn (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 01:56 (eighteen years ago) link

White Sloe Jam.

http://www.fiveland.com/pagine/img/jpg/c_prugnolo.jpg

― I Oppose All Rock and Roll (noodle vague), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 01:58 (eighteen years ago) link

i forgot to say the "slow jam" can be surprisingly (relatively) uptempo...so ditto i should think for the power ballad

― strng hlkngtn (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 02:00 (eighteen years ago) link

"Sweet Child 'O' Mine" may also be power balled.

― donut Get Behind Me Carbon Dioxide (donut), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 02:01 (eighteen years ago) link

"power ballads are a feeling"

― strng hlkngtn (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 02:01 (eighteen years ago) link

It's totally a power ballad. (Much as I don't care about Blender.) And if it's NOT, then what is it?

I know you are but what am I...

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 02:06 (eighteen years ago) link

Based on the 2nd half of the song, I'd say no.

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 02:46 (eighteen years ago) link

is "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake a power ballad?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 04:41 (eighteen years ago) link

It certainly sucks enough to be a power ballad.

― Burr (Burr), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 05:40 (eighteen years ago) link

no it's not a power ballad - did none of you dorks go to dances in sixth grade??? 'is this love' is the whitesnake ballad from that album (not very powerful though, definitely aiming for the foreigner coin), g'n'f'n'r's didn't have a power ballad until "don't cry", axl deliberately held it from circulation until it could be properly deployed and wrote another power ballad in the interim ("november rain" duh). power ballad basically = 'louder version of beatles' "don't let me down" hammerhead' - "i'll be there for you", "don't know what you got (til it's gone)", "keep on loving you".

― j blount (papa la bas), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 05:53 (eighteen years ago) link

i laways thought the guitar riff was too fast for the song.

― retroman, Wednesday, 21 September 2005 06:02 (eighteen years ago) link

I just remembered that Don't Cry is one of my favorite songs in the entire world. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Yeah, I asked about "Here I Go Again" simply because I think of it as this really rrrockin song; but the rrrockin part is just the chorus; the beginning of the song, and every time it goes back to the verse, it gets all yearny and wistful. Although there's still the undercurrent of menace chugging along beneath, ready to kind of bust out. I mean, if that's not a power ballad, then Home Sweet Home's not either!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 06:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Mogwai's version of Don't Cry made me love the song, it's true.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 08:27 (eighteen years ago) link

Every other power ballad mentioned here is slower than "Sweet Child". Maybe this is just the fastest one ever, then?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 09:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Where the fuck is sundar??

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 18:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Seriously. I'm in way over my head here.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 18:34 (eighteen years ago) link

"Action Ballad"

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link

i think its a power ballad too. mostly b/c it builds a lot.

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 20:15 (eighteen years ago) link

I dunno, dudes. Here's the thing. If that opening guitar riff were, say, continued through the first verse without too much of the rest of the band coming in -- you know, just some touches of bass, real reserved beat, etc. -- then maybe I'd be with you. But check it out: when the verse starts, the bass comes all in, and the whole thing starts working at a pace that's basically just a regular mid-tempo rock song, like kinda Tom Petty or Mellencamp or something. So I dunno. I mean, the content seems balladlike. But then you have to remember that GnR aren't ever going to slot into your standard hair-metal formal distinctions, cause they're really in a lot of ways kind of a bridge between the hair-metal version of "hard rock" and kinda grunge and post-grunge versions of "hard rock." And a mid-tempo rock song with ballad-like sentiments wouldn't seem particularly strange for the latter cadre. Skip forward to the Shannon Hoon connection -- not hard to imagine that dude writing a song with the general outlines of this one, and we wouldn't call it a "power ballad," just a mid-tempo rock song.

Plus the real thing about this song was that it totally broke beyond the perceived formal restrictions of hair-metal, which was kinda boys-like-rock, girls-like-ballad (hence the power-ballad and compromise); this song was even another compromise between rock and power-ballad (felt like rock but still worked for "the girls"), plus something about that just turning back into regular middling "rock" meant that people who didn't even like hair metal / hard rock at all could like them, which was kind of important to the future of the world (cf Terminator).

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link

See if Bon Jovi played this song, the whole first verse would be that riff getting played behind the vocal with just splashes of cymbal and one bass note hanging over every two bars. Def Leppard might even throw the riff over to piano, and the Scorpions would hang some big synth pads way behind it. And that'd be a power ballad. But see, as soon as it's time for Axl to come in, GnR are all like right, now we all kick into mid-tempo groove.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, but Bon Jovi collectively suck a big greasy dick, so the point is moot.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 22:02 (eighteen years ago) link

"power ballads are a feeling"
-- strng hlkngtn (wt...), September 21st, 2005. (dubplatestyle)

OTM....but Blount OTM as well...Sweet Child ain't a power ballad (altho we used to slow dance to it in jr high...but shit we tried to slow dance to "one" by Metallica too, which got all kindsa awkward on the "landmine imprisoning me all that i see" heavy part"....still...we carried on)

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 21 September 2005 22:10 (eighteen years ago) link

It's got power, and it's pretty like a ballad, and people can call it whatever they want, but still "Sweet Child Of Mine" sounds NOTHING like the stuff generally referred to as "power ballads." (Can't Fight This Feeling, Love Bites, Sister Christian, Heaven by Bryan Adams, etc.) It's too uptempo throughout. There are no harmony vocals. The usual quiet verse/loud chorus dynamics aren't extreme enough - the chorus isn't much more intense than the verse. There's no big crescendoes leading into the chorus. Etc. Like rogerinmexico said, tender sentiments alone aren't enough to make it a power ballad, even when they're accompanied with beautiful, melodic lead guitar parts. But again, you can call it whatever you want.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 22 September 2005 09:08 (eighteen years ago) link

I guess if you want to consider it a power-ballad in INTENT rather than in actual SOUND, that seems reasonable.

Oh, and I made a mistake when I said "no harmony vocals". I now remember that Axl double tracked a harmony onto the word "cry". A single word, if memory serves.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 22 September 2005 09:19 (eighteen years ago) link

More power ballad hairsplitting please!@@@!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 26 September 2005 03:45 (eighteen years ago) link

its so close to being there, but just isnt. I was just listening to Luna's version of it today and that's a bit closer to a power ballad. it just needs a bit more of a build up or anthemic quality to it. also, no sentimental instrumentation like synth of acoustic guitar or piano (as mentioned before).

― AaronK (AaronK), Monday, 26 September 2005 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Heh heh, but there IS an acoustic guitar in there, isn't there? (Isn't there??)(But I still agree w/you!)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Monday, 26 September 2005 14:29 (eighteen years ago) link

not prominent enough in the begining of the song.

i agree in theory that a power ballad is more of an emotion than a specific and explicit form, but this song just doesnt have it.

― AaronK (AaronK), Monday, 26 September 2005 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Nabisco: OTM.
At a Poison concert, in the beer line, I was given this definition: If it's sappy enough to make your girl want to fuck you in your Camero, yet still rockin' enough that you could listen to it with your denim vest friends, it's a power ballad.

― js (honestengine), Monday, 26 September 2005 14:49 (eighteen years ago) link

power ballads are the white slow jam! come on now people

-- strng hlkngtn (wt...), September 20th, 2005.

....and bryan adams is the barry white of the prairies....

― m0stly clean (m0stly clean), Monday, 26 September 2005 15:32 (eighteen years ago) link

LOL js...

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Monday, 26 September 2005 16:13 (eighteen years ago) link

eight years pass...

this is not a power ballad

also how many rock songs have endings this good, very few, is the answer

― j., Tuesday, 19 November 2013 22:28 (ten years ago) link

It's really more of a suite, I suppose.

― Alex in NYC, Tuesday, 19 November 2013 22:32 (ten years ago) link

three months pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ3BAF_15yQ

― PSY talks The Nut Job (forksclovetofu), Monday, 24 February 2014 00:20 (ten years ago) link

Joyous, thank you.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Monday, 24 February 2014 02:27 (ten years ago) link

five years pass...

First 80s song to hit 1 billion views on YouTube apparently.

― nashwan, Wednesday, 16 October 2019 09:44 (four years ago) link

It beat Journey?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 16 October 2019 13:39 (four years ago) link

Yes if only because Don't Stop Believing never had an official video meaning its views have been spread across numerous fan uploads, TV clips and live versions over the years. SCOM's official clip has been on YT nearly 10 years.

― nashwan, Wednesday, 16 October 2019 14:13 (four years ago) link

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