Comeback Kids

Guitar World’s 10 Best Comeback Albums of All Time proves that you can’t keep a good band down.

Even the best artists sometimes:

1) Take risks that fans don’t dig

2) Let success get in the way

3) Run out of ideas

4) Lose their way

5) Just get overtaken by something new and exciting

Or, as the list also illustrates, people die and stuff.  So bravo AC/DC!  Well done, Foo Fighters!

But most of the list is about a wake-up call, followed by a determined (and successful) effort to proclaim, “Not down for the count!”

U2, Metallica, Johnny Cash, Aerosmith, John Lennon, Deep Purple, the Stones, The Dixie Chicks …  they’ve all proven they had a lot more to give.

Good for them … and lucky us!

Dream On, Dudes

Gibson has this list of 10 Power Ballads That Don't Suck.

Well, ya know, these are some pretty good songs:

Dream On – Aerosmith

Day After Day – Badfinger

Ballad of Dwight Fry – Alice Cooper

Bringin’ on the Heartbreak – Def Leppard

Don’t Look Back in Anger – Oasis

Learn to Fly – Foo Fighters

We are the Champions – Queen

More Than a Feeling – Boston

All the Young Dudes – Mott the Hoople

Purple Rain – Mr. Squirckle

The premise of the article is that power ballads “have gotten and undeserved bad rap,” that the “gaudy, bombastic videos” of the 80’s caused this otherwise charming genre to fall from grace.

Nonsense.  The videos just added visuals to the gaudy, bombastic music.

If you’re a fan of rock music (a dying breed, I know), you may point to the rise of rap or the laziness of grunge as the moment when the decline of rock began.  But a good case can be made against the power ballad.  Sorry, dudes, but the bad rap is deserved.

Re: the list.  They aren’t bad tunes, but they aren’t all really power ballads.