And "Disaster Hearts," by I Fight Dragons, is a straightforward ballad that uses eight-bit only sparingly.
The funniest lyric — "When I realize I'm covered in the blood of another, I wish it was yours" — doesn't really land in the context of the otherwise straightforward ballad of yearning in which it is set.
Recorded in Brazil, Argentina and the United States, the music is unassumingly pan-American, as likely to draw on American pop — like the straightforward ballad "Depois" ("After") — as to pick up a Brazilian rhythm; the single "Ainda Bem" ("Still Good") leans toward bolero, and elsewhere string arrangements provide a retro glaze.
"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," written for Franklin by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, opened as a straightforward ballad and rose to an ecstatic chorus like one of Clarence's sermons.
He did, however, describe it as the albums most straightforward ballad and as a song which could have been written in 1972, with its "with its yearning lyrics and sparse production".
All of the albums were proudly unclassifiable, veering between straightforward soul ballads, idiosyncratic experiments, personal confessions, and instrumental fragments.
"Unconditionally" is the wedding-song contender, a straightforward power ballad declaring love as heroic action and asking for it in return.
They chirrup through their latest single, There Is No Other Time, a flippant, if not straightforward, 4x4 ballad, which – if you look past the trite dance tropes about "feeling the forces" and "letting go" – is quite fun.
"Hey You" is a stripped-down, straightforward mid-tempo ballad with influences of folk in it and features lyrics like "Hey you/ Don't you give up/ It's not so bad/ There's still a chance for us".
