The top 30 obscure rock/pop ballads of the 70’s and 80’s: Part 1–The 80’s

One thing I loved about the 1970’s and 80’s was the album for­mat. This was the age of AOR or what used to be known as Album Ori­ented Rock. Used to be, that there was a large legion of music fans that would buy albums, as opposed to merely sin­gles, which in that time were released on 45 RPM’s.

There were some great rock and pop bal­lads writ­ten through­out these two decades. My aim is to cap­ture not only some of the best, but more impor­tantly, more obscure songs that you very may never have heard of. This can pro­vide a fresh approach when look­ing for a selected cover song to record and make your own.

So here is the deal. There are things to real­ize about this post.

First, these lists are obvi­ously sub­jec­tive, but at the same time, under­stand that this is com­ing from some­one (me!) who sat for hours upon hours in their bed­room as a kid lis­ten­ing to records, and not just hit songs, but entire albums! I am no doubt, a music freak.

Sec­ondly, depend­ing who you are, there are a few of these songs that may not seem obscure at all. Granted, some of these songs were hits (most of them were not), but the main premise, is that these songs were all clas­sic tunes that you either don’t hear any­more, or were lit­eral “B” sides that were, well…just plain great songs. Fans of these bands cer­tainly know these songs. That is some­thing that has changed com­pletely in the age of singles.

Thirdly and most impor­tantly, I posted these for you to per­haps record for your­self. C’mon. Do some re-arranging, make one of these your own…be cre­ative! A great song is time­less, not mat­ter what the time period. So don’t pay atten­tion to the dress or style of these time peri­ods – that is irrel­e­vant. There are some gems in here, that in my opin­ion, you may be able to use, pro­vided you look beyond the pro­duc­tion and think more of how you could develop a par­tic­u­lar song to fit your genre and the cur­rent time period.

First, let’s look check out the 1980’s. Here are my picks. Your com­ments are wel­come. Yes, go ahead. Leave a comment!

The Top 15 Obscure Rock/Pop Bal­lads of the 1980’s

1. Hold On (When You Feel You’re Falling)-Spys (1982)

Founded by ex-Foreigner mem­bers Ed Gagliardi and Al Green­wood, Spys were one of the best rock bands of the early 80’s regard­less of how much of a splash they made. Too often, peo­ple make assump­tions of the qual­ity of a band or song based upon their chart sta­tus. If you know any­thing about the busi­ness, you’ll be chuck­ling at that last state­ment. There were way too many great bands of that day that didn’t get pro­moted the way they should of. The Spys were one of these bands.

2. It Ain’t Enough-Corey Hart (1983)

Corey Hart broke out on the scene in the early 80’s with his hit Sun­glasses At Night. A pro­lific song­writer and emo­tional per­former, It Ain’t Enough was on Hart’s first record First Offense (1983). As an alter­na­tive to the orig­i­nal link, this is the acoustic ver­sion with Corey on the piano. (Please note that there is a 1 minute per­sonal intro to this version).

3. Let­ting Go-Straight Lines (1982)

Straight Lines was a pop act from Canada. Writ­ers Robert Buck­ley (keys and sax) and David Sin­clair (gui­tars and vocals) were nom­i­nated for Composer’s of the Year at the 1983 Juno Awards. Though only a select few radio sta­tions played this song, it always sur­prised me that it never truly broke out stateside.

4. More Than Just The Two of Us-Sneaker (1981)

The band Sneaker from the West Coast, hit the Top 40 in 1981 with this song, pro­duced by Doo­bie Broth­ers and Steely Dan gui­tarist Jeff Bax­ter. One ele­ment I love is the pres­ence of piano in so many of the bal­lads of that day. Great melody, vocal deliv­ery and those stacked back­ing vocals!

5. Why Not Me-Fred Knobloch (1980)

Knobloch is no stranger to the indus­try, hav­ing penned songs for George Strait, Trisha Year­wood, Faith Hill, Etta James and more. In 1980, his song Why Not Me was a radio favorite reach­ing #1 on Billboard’s AC charts and #18 on the Hot 100. Though the pro­duc­tion is obvi­ously incred­i­bly dated, the song remains iden­ti­fi­able. Knobloch has a way of per­son­al­iz­ing his songs so the lis­tener can con­nect – one of the qual­i­ties of a great song­writer. This song has truly been lost in time, await­ing for some­one to come along and breathe life back into it!

6. Heart Over Mind-Van Stephen­son (1984)

If you were a kid back in this time, the name prob­a­bly doesn’t reg­is­ter, but the song Mod­ern Day Delilah may. On the same album, was the “B-side” bal­lad Heart Over Mind. Van Stephen­son was a decent writer and like many of that time, a tal­ented vocalist.

7. With­out You-Franke and the Knock­outs (1982)

Most iden­tify Franke Pre­vite, lead singer of his band Franke and the Knock­outs with his hit song Sweet­heart (that’s the band com­pletely live, mind you). Though Pre­vite always seemed to dress like a pimp back then (I’m sure he cringes at those old pic­tures – just pickin’ at you Franke), he had an incred­i­ble voice and a knack for writ­ing great melodies and hooks. I remem­ber sum­mer nights as a teen lis­ten­ing to this song with my girl­friend while we were…

8. Falling in Love Again-Michael Stan­ley Band (1981)

Hail­ing from Cleve­land, Ohio – home of the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, Stan­ley never could break out of the Mid­west, but because of the bands hard­core fol­low­ing, they man­aged to hold major label con­tracts with Epic, EMI and Arista through­out their hey­day. MSB still holds atten­dance records at the (now demol­ished) Col­i­seum at Rich­field and The Blos­som Music Cen­ter. Known for the Top 40 hit song He Can’t Love You, Stan­ley wrote this country-rock bal­lad which was always a long-time favorite of his fans.

9. Stay Awhile-Journey (1980)

What more can I say about this leg­endary band? Their stay­ing power is proven and are still one of the best sell­ing acts of today. From their album Depar­ture (1980), Stay Awhile was one of Steve Perry’s best, how­ever it is often over­shad­owed by the likes of Open Arms and Faith­fully. Def­i­nitely doable for any band today want­ing a mem­o­rable but sim­ple love song to put on their next record.

10. It’s Never Easy-Loverboy (1983)

At one time, Lover­boy ruled the charts with songs like Workin for the Week­end, Get Lucky and Queen of The Bro­ken Hearts. They came right before the hair band/glam rock thing became fash­ion­able and were MTV favorites. It’s Never Easy has always been on my list for one of the best unknown bal­lads. Vocal­ist Mike Reno delivers.

11. Into The Night-Benny Mar­dones (1980, 1989)

Mar­dones actu­ally was lucky enough to have a major hit with Into The Night, twice; once in 1980 and then 9 years later, in 1989. One thing about this song, is that although it was pop­u­lar, it is often for­got­ten until you hear it, and then it’s like “I’ve heard this!” Most how­ever, never know the song­writer and artist.

12. Alone Tonight-Genesis (1980)

Gen­e­sis went through many artis­tic trans­for­ma­tions through the years. From the eccen­tric, Peter Gabriel era to the hit pop/rock machine of Phil Collins, Alone Tonight comes from a period in between the two. From Duke (1980), This is one of Collins’ early ballads.

13. Why Can’t This Night (Go On For­ever) –Jour­ney (1986)

This song was the last cut on the 1986 album Raised on Radio – the record that Amer­i­can Idol’s Randy Jack­son played on. The song never really got its due because of the tour get­ting cut short, in addi­tion to the band part­ing ways. Love this power bal­lad. Wish they would bring this one back. I’m sure Arnel would nail it.

14. Time-Alan Par­sons Project (1980)

Best known as the pro­ducer for Pink Floyd’s Dark­side of the Moon, Par­sons had a few radio hits back in the early 80’s, how­ever Time was one of his best. The pro­duc­tion effort is supe­rior for that decade, sur­real and multi-dimensional – typ­i­cal of his style.

15. I’ll Be Over You-Toto (1986)

As accom­plished stu­dio play­ers and pro­duc­ers, the mem­bers of Toto were on some of the biggest albums known to man (Michael Jackson’s Thriller being one), how­ever most peo­ple rarely knew it. Toto was a pet project that mem­bers launched in the late 70’s and made impact with  Hold the Line, and I’ll Sup­ply The Love.  Their album IV, released in 1984 was prob­a­bly their most com­mer­cially suc­cess­ful, earn­ing 6 Grammy awards and yield­ing the hit songs Rosanna, Africa and I Won’t Hold You Back. Although I’ll Be Over You peaked at #11 on the Bill­board Hot 100, it has quickly been for­got­ten by many over the years. A great song that no doubt, holds up to any­thing on Toto IV.

Go to Part 2: Top 15 Obscure Rock/Pop Bal­lads of the 1970’s.

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