The ’70s were the decade that gave us most of the canonical pioneering power ballads: “Stairway To Heaven,” “Free Bird,” “Dream On,” “Beth,” Nazareth’s version of the Everlys’ “Love Hurts.” In those songs, you can hear the bands figuring out exactly how this whole thing should work - how quiet it should be at the beginning, how loud you should sing the final chorus, when the screaming guitar solo should come in. Sometime in the ’70s, people figured out that stretched-out slow-builders could have their own kind of majesty and that they could make for magical arena moments. Ballads were crucial parts of rock ‘n’ roll right from the beginning Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers all had them. The lighters-aloft thing was the perfect response to the power ballad - the stadium-rocking sensitive-soul yowler that became a rock-show staple before I was born. When I went to my first concert - Guns N’ Roses/Metallica/Faith No More, RFK Stadium, July ’92 - I had no idea what was happening when the lighters came out during “Fade To Black.” Nobody had ever explained to me that this was a thing that people did. That ritual had descended into goofy cliche by the time I started going to shows regularly, and it was fully replaced by the phone screen by the mid-’00s. Who was the first person ever to stand on a chair during a slow song and hold a lighter in the air? History has forgotten this person’s name, but we should salute a pioneer. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.
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