Melodramatic, over-the-top songs.

Cafe Society
41

Wow! This is going on my Fantastic Bombastic playlist (thanks, gigi).

42

Nights in White Satin.
Cause I Love You
Cause I Love You dammit.
Ohhhhhhh.

43

And no one’s mentioned Emerson Lake and Palmer yet?

Or the Nice?

Keith Emerson did bombast whenever he sat down the play.

44

“Sometimes When We Touch” by Dan Hill, who emotes the song like he’s getting a prostate exam from a proctologist with a hook for a hand (HT to Dave Barry).

45

For some reason this old C-Pop song popped into my head.

46

Jar of Hearts by Christina Perry
My Man by Streisand

47

Billy Joel has got a few of these: “This is the Time”, “Goodnight Saigon”, “Honesty”.

48

If you Go Away by almost anyone - Scott Walker, Shirley Bassey, Marc Almond…
Or here he is again singing one called Just Good Friends

49

Bobby Goldsboro’s Honey.

Just a *little *over-the-top, methinks.

50

x
I REALLY NEED YOU TONIGHT!!!

51

I’ll raise you We Didn’t Start the Fire.

52

I think we are losing the plot here a little. None of these Billy Joel songs are over-the-top melodramatic. And while Honey is pretty sappy, it isn’t bombastic. Focus, people!

53

“Live and Let Die”

54

Billy Don’t Be a Hero Especially this video, with its MTV-like story, the band backed by an orchestra, and its overly sentimental lyrics.

It’s astonishing what we considered (pop) culture in those days. (Slightly off-topic, but keeping with the theme of that last thought, it still amazes me that Starland Vocal Band, based on one song, got a TV show, even if it was just a summer show. And that the song was based on having sex. But then again, Jim Stafford’s Wildwood Weed was also immensely popular, and he also had a TV variety show. Just goes to show what hypocrites Americans can be.)

55

Bobby Goldsboro’s Honey

Jim Steinman wrote the lyrics for Whistle Down the Wind, and Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the music. The musical never hit Broadway. youtube at your own risk (though it did include the song Annie Christmas)

56

I happen to really like all of these.
I suspect that if Steinman and Dennis DeYoung had teamed up on Broadway, Andrew Lloyd Webber would have been an also-ran.
I also think that if they could have successfully made two musicals out of ABBA songs, they could put “Kilroy was Here” on Broadway.

57

I’m surprised that, this far into the thread, I’m the first to mention Springsteen’s “Born In The USA”. He definitely should have gone with the low-key “Nebraska”-style version of that one.

58

All this talk about audio bombast and we haven’t mentioned the Godfather of melodramatic over-the-top pop, Phil Spector. Some examples:

Another example: Levi Stubbs, lead singer of The Four Tops. his over-dramatic style pushed nearly every song into near-melodrama. Cases in point:

59

Foreigner - “I Want To Know What Love Is.”

Just shoot me.

60

Oh, Wierd Al. I haven’t heard that before. He’s a genius.