What's your favourite post-2000 ballad? Why?
 

Following this thread, now I'm asking, what's your favourite post-2000 ballad?

I added what I consider to be the most ballad-esque songs, I didn't added Open All Night and You Had Me From Hello as they are more acoustic pieces than proper ballads; something similar with Room At The End Of The World that seems more like a midtempo. I added These Open Arms as it was an official bonus track of an studio album.

Well, I think I go first. I think that the first place would go to (You Want To) Make A Memory or 'Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore. The first one might not be the best live song these days, but the studio version (specially the single mix) is fantastic. I like Strangers because of the lyrical content "It might be hard to be lovers, but it's harder to be friends". Might not be a piece of art, but are lyrics that are easy to relate, and it has a nice guitar; also, LeAnn Rimes does her job well IMO.

Thank You For Loving Me was a favourite when I was a kid and trough my adolescence, but nowadays I'm kinda tired of it. I'd love to hear it love, though, as in Canada 2011 sounded excelent and it could be a staple of every night.

Save The World is a super-underrated (fixed!) song, I love the guitar, the melody, the "wooooooooooooooorld" at the end. Really great, great, song!

And These Open Arms is one of the most beautiful songs ever written "And what if everyone you ever loved was torn, from the pages of your life? Would you reach out for tomorrow, or try to turn back time?" "Do you make a damn of difference in someone elses' life?", sadly it was just a bonus track. But still, every time I hear it it makes me shiver.

Memory gets me every time. I love that song. The first time I saw the video I cried. Please don't make fun, lol. I'm usually not so sappy and sentimental.

Memory, without a doubt. The other post-2000 ballads are mostly lame.

Memory by a country mile. TYFLM would be my second choice.

Memory is the only one of the post-2000 that I think is truly good. The rest are kind of bland to me, but at-least memory is a bit special.

Its a hard choice for me.... i've always loved Make a Memory but Thick as Thieves was a very very pleasant surprise, one of the best tracks of WAN. I dont know if I like Thick as Thieves that much because of it being unexpected or because I trully think is a great song.... maybe both.

The only thing that is clear is that Memory has passed the test of time ^^

You mean underrated, don't you?

For me it's Make A Memory.

I went with Thank You as my fav ballad because it follows the pre formula although Memory is a better song....

You Had Me From Hello is missing. There are also some on the box set. I'm not sure if they would fall under Pre or Post

Edit: just read the opening statement about YHMFH and I think it should have been included although no one would pick it anyway. Lol

I went for Thank You For Loving me. I adore it. Memory would be a very close 2nd.

I think These Open Arms has so much potential to be a phenomenal song; the lyrics are incredible at the start, the melody is haunting, and Jon's vocals are beautiful, but then it just seems to fall into pure formulaic songwriting. Shame, could've been a rival to Always, I think.