Yeah, I assume (and hope) so anyway. :lol:

 

Ditto :lol:.

By ballads, I meant traditional ballads - where the vocals and lyrics are at the forefront.

 

"Ballads" like 'Don't Hold Your Breath' and 'Meet Me Halfway' are more "clubby" than actually balladry (yes, I have no idea if that is an actual term :lol:).

Possibly but i think music goes in cycles. For the past 2/3 years everything has been electro-pop but then the chart becomes saturated and everything sounds the same so people go searching for something different.

 

You're kidding, right? That's *not* the genre that has been dominant recently...

Maybe electropop is on the wane, but the majority of chart music is still club-orientated and the focus on bands has been lost in the singles chart in favour of an emphasis on songs. There's probably less "brand loyalty" than ever, that only really seems to exist to a great degree on the album chart.

Exactly - it hasn't died out, acts are just moving on to other areas of dance music, exploring further. There's a lot of music with heavy house influences in the charts at the moment, especially coming from the American acts - probably because of the huge success of songs like I Gotta Feeling and Bad Romance, and producers like David Guetta. Making straight up electropop/synthpop/whatever is old hat now, even Lady Gaga has moved away from that, and the likes of Britney and Rihanna are experimenting with other areas of dance. But the charts are still very much in the dance mould and I don't see any signs of that changing.

 

And like someone else said, a big old-fashioned love ballad can ALWAYS sell in any climate. It's not like I Will Always Love You defined the sound of 1992, or Love Is All Around the sound of 1994. There's always a market to tap into for that kind of ballad (probably mainly consisting of females, without meaning to sound stereotypical :lol:) - it's just whether the song is strong enough to connect with that kind of music listener, I guess.

Edited May 2, 201114 yr by superbossanova

You're kidding, right? That's *not* the genre that has been dominant recently...

 

You talking about urban? That term covers quite a few genres, and even in urban music, there's been a lack of ballads tbh. And as someone else mentioned, we are getting massive urban ballads, but most of them are quite dancey.

 

Electropop has been huge recently. Electropop and dance-pop are easily the two biggest sub-genres of pop at the moment. Sure, they've always been around, but they kind of exploded early 2009, like when La Roux and Lady Gaga were popular.

 

Even in the urban scene, it went quite electro and dancey. There was a point in 2009 where the biggest urban songs were Number 1, Boom Boom Pow and Bonkers.

Oh dear at much of this thread. 'Fight for This Love' and 'Don't Hold Your Breath', ballads?! :lol:

Oh dear at much of this thread. 'Fight for This Love' and 'Don't Hold Your Breath', ballads?! :lol:

 

They're both mid-tempos in my opinion - a tempo that is rarely identified and is instead passed off as either an up-tempo ballad or a slow up-tempo. :mellow:

 

As for FFTL being electro-pop --> :lol:

They're both mid-tempos in my opinion - a tempo that is rarely identified and is instead passed off as either an up-tempo ballad or a slow up-tempo. :mellow:

 

As for FFTL being electro-pop --> :lol:

 

Fight for This Love isn't electro-pop, but that doesn't make it a ballad. A song doesn't become a ballad just because its lyrics are vaguely 'serious'...

I think the definition of a ballad isin't very clear.

Oh dear at much of this thread. 'Fight for This Love' and 'Don't Hold Your Breath', ballads?! :lol:

 

You probably think they aren't ballads because they're dance-y?

 

And, let's be fair guys, I did say this:

 

Another example of a massive-selling electropop ballad in the past few years is Fight For This Love actually. Although that might be more synth-pop than electropop, but yeah. :lol:

 

:lol:

Edited May 2, 201114 yr by Eric_Blob

Fight for This Love isn't electro-pop, but that doesn't make it a ballad. A song doesn't become a ballad just because its lyrics are vaguely 'serious'...

 

I would say the lyrics are very meaningful.

 

I would say the lyrics are very meaningful.

 

Yeah. If Fight For This Love was sung to the instrumental of Empire State of Mind, Part II, or Someone Like You, or Love the Way You Lie, Part II, I'm sure everybody would readily consider it a ballad.

I think the definition of a ballad isin't very clear.

Oh but it is.

 

This is clearly a ballad:

 

 

This is a midtempo:

 

 

Not even Girls Aloud can do a dance routine to a bloody ballad.

 

 

The biggest difference between the two is blindingly obvious. The tempo.

 

 

For example:

 

 

The above is one of my favourite songs, it's a midtempo. At first it sounds like it could be a ballad, it's first 30seconds are pure strings. HOWEVER, when the rest of the instruments join in the party that becomes less clear as you start to heat a beat you can tap along to, then the chorus explodes and it's midtempo territory. Even though the balladesque strings are dominant and the slushy lyrics, the rest of the instrumental and the chorus gives the game away. The build up out of the middle 8 also shows that it's clearly not a ballad.

 

It's easy to tell the difference.

Is this a ballad?

 

 

As I said earlier in the thread, people are hearing a song that they can dance to, and on that basis alone, are saying it's not a ballad.

Edited May 2, 201114 yr by Eric_Blob

I wouldn't call Fight For This Love a ballad at all- its purely mid-tempo, the only Cheryl song I would describe as a ballad is The Flood

 

Don't Hold Your Breath you could say to an extent is a ballad - but its still a bit too up-tempo imo, ballads aren't really stuff you can dance too

 

Make You Feel My Love, Someone Like You and Fast Car- now they are ballads

Yeah. If Fight For This Love was sung to the instrumental of Empire State of Mind, Part II, or Someone Like You, or Love the Way You Lie, Part II, I'm sure everybody would readily consider it a ballad.

Lyrics do not a ballad make. It's very easy to make an uptempo a ballad. The backing track is the most important part along with the way the lyrics are sung.

 

Example:

 

 

Uptempo, yes? The lyrics are almost balladesque, after all the song is essentially a love song.

 

 

The lyrics haven't changed, but the song is now a proper slushy ballad. Why? The backing track and the way it's sung.

 

 

You can make anything into a ballad. So just because FFTL has lyrics that suggest it should be a ballad doesn't mean it is. It screams midtempo.

Lush ballad example Silas - Tone Damli :wub:

 

 

The songs in the top 40 I'd classify as proper ballads are:

 

I didn't include Fast Car as it's not quite a ballad imo. There are also (as has been mentioned) electro-pop ballads like Don't Hold Your Breath, but the above 3 are actual proper ballads! Love them all too!

Ok so I was thinking with the major success of Adele and Bruno Mars recently, are ballads finally making a comeback this year...or will they?

 

'Someone Like You', 'Just the Way You Are' and 'Grenade' have all been number one, 'Make You Feel My Love' and 'Fast Car' have both become far more succesful than they were originally due to X Factor and BGT and there are probably other examples out there.

 

And then on the flipside, the electro-pop craze that sort of started in 2009, apparently led by GaGa, is dying out. Ke$ha, Britney and even GaGa herself haven't been as popular as they once were.

 

So are people going back to, some could say, "real music" instead of this electro-pop trend or is this wishful thinking on my part? :P

 

I far preferred the electro-pop trend to the 'club bangers' that we have dominating now. It's like US rappers all suddenly just discovered European dance music at the same time and whilst this is all well and good, and I really like a lot of the songs from the genre, it's like radio now refuse to play anything else all of a sudden - it's dominating relentlessly. That said, there have indeed been a few decent ballads around recently, and I'd really like them to make a major comeback. A lot of timeless classics are ballads, Someone Like You and Just The Way You Are (although more mid-tempo than ballad) are definitely future classics imo.

Is this a ballad?

 

 

As I said earlier in the thread, people are hearing a song that they can dance to, and on that basis alone, are saying it's not a ballad.

Yes it is. Because the change in tempo of the backing track makes it so. As does the way it's sung, ghastly key change for the chorus and all.

Isn't this why we have so few ballads in the chart then? The way people are deciding to define a ballad now means a only a very precise slice of music classifies as a ballad.

 

And do songs like these classify as ballads?

 

Edited May 2, 201114 yr by Eric_Blob