10 Best Rock Ballads Of The 90's

By the time the 90's rolled around, everyone was over the typical formula of the 80's hair metal bands. Every single one of the teased-hair posers had the same general consensus with their songs: one song would be a party song, the next would be a sappy ballad.

While starting off as sincere, the ballads of the era went from playful love songs to pathetic pleas to win the affection of a girl. Once the new decade was dawning, so did the song construction. These ballads did have to deal with potent emotions, but not in the same way a desperate hair metal band would. Instead of just being odes to an anonymous girl, these songs would be about everything from existential angst to nostalgia to even breakups.

Yes, there were still love songs to be found amid the more serious material, but these songs still had an added level of emotional gravitas to them that took them from being just simple love songs to something more soul-stirring. No matter how much force went into the 80's output, the ballads of the 90's could hit you in a much more personal place than any previous decade.

When constructing a ballad, most people automatically assume that it has to be about a romantic relationship between two partners. Whether it's to woo the girls in the front row or a wistful tune about missing your old flame, most of the lyrics of these tunes tend to be love letters to someone in particular.

Coming off of the Smashing Pumpkins' universal smash double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, this tune is instead Billy Corgan's ode to nostalgia. The year 1979 in the lyrics has been quoted by Corgan as the year that he grew out of his childhood and into a brooding adolescent. As such, the song has an unstoppable riff that seems to conjure up images of a simpler time before the commitments of everyday life seeped in.

Suddenly, that guitar riff brings you right back to the days of tearing up the town with your old buddies, not worrying about what tomorrow will bring. The romanticism painted in the lyrics is like Corgan reached into the human spirit and focused it in musical form. This song is like a mini time machine to your youth, but it's made all the more heartbreaking when you realize you can never go back.