Much fighting occurred with this one – the best power ballads of the genre’s golden years.

Foreigner ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’
The aim of the power ballad is to touch you emotionally, and most use a sledgehammer to crack that particular walnut. However this UK and US No.1 is kind of gentle – no big toms, no screaming solos – but it swooshingly tugs at the heartstrings, as proved when we made a grown man cry while DJing it at The Sidewinder. Admittedly it was Valentine’s Day. As his friend comforted him we knew taking the record off would only highlight the situation, so let the six and a half minute 12” version do its worst. In the end we were almost in tears too. (JK)

Bon Jovi ‘Never Say Goodbye’
Back when New Jersey was synonymous with stadium rock rather than Snooki, hit-heavy ‘Slippery When Wet’ was a teen girl’s slippery wet dream. The fourth single from the album showed us chiselled-jawed Jon’s emotional side and, as we hugged a pillow, listening to him reminisce to his high school sweetheart, “Remember when we lost the keys? You lost more than that in my back seat, baby”, we imagined we were her – running our fingers over his ill-judged snakeskin mackintosh and through his monstrous highlighted tresses as he sensitively breached our maidenhead. (RK)

T’Pau ‘China In Your Hand’
We had a massive crush on Carol Decker despite the fact she was a positively ancient 30 years old when ‘China In Your Hand’ hit the top spot in 1987. A perfect example of the explosiveness of power ballads, after just 30 seconds of pretty pizzicato violins Cazza is belting it out over distorted guitars and big drums. When the screaming sax solo comes in we’ve ticked all the boxes and are gooey inside. So gooey that we’d missed the fact that the song is about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. (JK)

Marillion ‘Kayleigh’
“Every musician is attractive,” says stand up du jour Louie CK. “Isn’t that a weird coincidence, that everyone who can play music also looks good?” Well, it wasn’t always so. In the 80s we had Fish, the lead singer of the desperately uncool Marillion – a man who looked like a prog rock builder. But who needs a pretty face when you’ve got songs this beautiful? Rather than an ode to the Yorkshire town, it’s an apology to some of the women he went out with. One was called Kay and had a middle name of Lee. If you’re called Kayleigh we’re pretty sure you’re under 27 years old. (JK)

Heart ‘Alone’
When rock bands get the pianos out you know it’s power ballad time. ‘Alone’ has the genre’s best ivory tinkling, as well as more hair than any other band in this list, which is high praise indeed. The drums are so big that a piano literally explodes in the video, while Cameron Crowe’s future wife and soundtracker Nancy Wilson ruts with her guitar in a way that would make Van Halen blush. Itself a cover (even E.R. actor John Stamos got there first), the song recently hit the No.2 position in the form of Alyssa Reid’s fuck-awful ‘Alone Again’. (JK)

Pandora’s Box ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me Now’
Having given Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler their most famous fist-clenchers, Jim Steinman nevertheless believed this eight minute epic was the most romantic song he’d ever written. Melding a necrophiliac reading of Wuthering Heights with a low-rent sense of grandeur, the song features two guitar solos, three double choruses and a never-ending finale. Later covered by Meatloaf and Celine Dion, this 1989 original was sung by Elaine Caswell, who reportedly collapsed five times during recording – presumably through sheer emotional exertion. Ken Russell directed the £35k-an-hour video, showing a gang of S&M dancers openly groping the protagonist’s corpse. In Steinman’s world, more can never be anything less than more. (BB)

Plus A Bonus Track

Tina Turner ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’
It doesn’t take more than a couple of drinks for any of us to end up crooning this down our best mate’s ear. Like any great power ballad, ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ holds an uplifting melody tinged with sadness and emotion (albeit a second hand one). Whether you know the back-story or not, we all know the pain she’s singing of. Then there’s the music video – who could forget Tina strolling through the streets of New York, in those heels and that denim number? (SJ)

Words by Ben Bailey, James Kendall, Rosie Kendall and Sean Jordan

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