Soft Rock Ballad
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Soft Rock Ballad is the slow, romantic, high-emotion form of soft rock: piano or acoustic guitar openings, swelling strings or synth pads, restrained drums that bloom into choruses, and earnest lead vocals. Tempos usually sit between 55 and 85 BPM, with large hooks and carefully paced dynamic lifts. It is built for slow dances, closing credits, and the noble art of staring through rain-streaked windows.
History
The style arose from early-1970s singer-songwriter ballads and soft-pop love songs, then became a dominant AC and Top 40 language by the late 1970s and early 1980s. Air Supply, Bread, Chicago, Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, Journey, Elton John, Billy Joel, Lionel Richie, and Phil Collins each brought different degrees of rock, pop, and soul into the format. Soft Rock Ballad fed power ballads, wedding ballads, adult contemporary, soundtrack pop, and the 1980s slow-jam crossover vocabulary.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Soft rock genre history
- Bread artist history
- 1970s soft-rock radio histories
- Billboard/Adult Contemporary chart histories