#Ballad · IMissIt.com

Music 2006–2007

Lips of an Angel

Hinder's whispered phone call to an ex — "honey, why you calling me so late?" — that owned radio and ringtones in the fall of 2006. The power ballad every flip phone in America seemed to erupt with, guilty premise and all.

Music 2004

The Reason

"I'm not a perfect person…" — and suddenly it's 2004 in every car, mall, and graduation slideshow in America. Hoobastank's colossal apology ballad spent the year parked near the top of the charts and never really left rock radio's rotation.

Music 1992

Under the Bridge

A poem about loneliness and addiction that Anthony Kiedis never intended to sing became the Red Hot Chili Peppers' No. 2 smash — the ballad that turned funk-rock's shirtless wild men into MTV's most unlikely heartbreakers.

Music 2005–2006

You're Beautiful

James Blunt's fragile falsetto confession — a stranger's glance on the London Underground stretched into three minutes of 'it's true.' It conquered the charts on both sides of the Atlantic in 2005–06, then got played until nobody could stand it. Including Blunt.