Romantic Schmaltz Songs: What Are You Favorites?

David · #1 09-07-2008, 09:40 PM

I'm on a romantic schmaltz of the '80s & '90s kick. I'm listening to this uplifting classic by Vanessa Williams:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZu2PtwQsm0

These songs are usually garish & filled with digital piano & synthesizer. They're lush, hyperromantic, & overproduced. Typically, they're sung by a man & a woman, like this seminal classic from 1981, which may have started the entire genre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1fXpn-eaKc

Other times, they're sung by a woman alone, whose caterwauling voice makes love to itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeI06...eature=related

The precedents for this type of song go back even further, like this late '70s lump-in-the-throat hit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqTq8gckf8E

Like the above, often these songs are big hits during the credits of crappy movies. Here's one you probably remember:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1Ed3b13RdQ

The other one everybody always has in mind is the caterwauling Celine Dion singing about that doomed ship in the north Atlantic. (What was the name of it?)

One of my favorites is this garishly grotesque & catchy hit by Taylor Dayne:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwjcl7GIdm8

Even the whitebread pop singers can do it well!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIX1HE3r1UI
(This one features Gandalf the Grey on bass.)

Do you have other favorite examples?

ajmccarrell · #2 09-08-2008, 12:18 AM

How about a few by the Master of Schmalz, John Denver! Annie's Song, Back Home Again, I'm Sorry, Leaving on a Jetplane, My Sweet Lady, Goodbye Again, Starwood in Aspen, Darcy Farrow, I Want to Live, and countless others. I have everything he's ever done!

Phoenix · #3 09-08-2008, 02:54 AM

haha what a fun thread. its so true that sometmes when these songs are on the radio and when the windows are up and ur alone, u know ur singin along hahaha, but i do actually really like that Taylor Dane song