Throwback Thursday: "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" Cutting Crew

There are '80s power ballads and then there are '80s Power Ballads, the kind of epic, usually cheesy, hits that define an era of excess and will never die no matter how dated they come to sound. (Look to "Don't Stop Believing" and its pop cultural dominance for a prime example of this phenomenon.) Cutting Crew's "(I Just) Died in Your Arms," unfortunately, is more of the former—a moderately appealing, fairly unmemorable effort that is welcome to stay in the past. Though it has a striking organ intro and a great guitar line, the song flops in its star-making moment, that which could have pushed it into legendary status: the chorus. Where other tracks soar, "Died" feels slightly constrained, failing to provide adequate sonic release and producing a slightly oppressive effect (perhaps the result of singer Nick Van Eede's limited vocal range?). Despite a sufficiently ridiculous backstory—the titular refrain is a reference to an obscure French metaphor for orgasm, which came to Van Eede while he was having sex—"Died" does not reach nearly enough epically cheesy heights to stand with the classics, or even the "classics," of the 1980s. B-

25 years ago this week, "(I Just) Died in Your Arms" was the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100.