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User
Reviews 364
Approval 85%
Soundoffs 7
News Articles 1
Band Edits + Tags 22
Album Edits 105
Album Ratings 355
Objectivity 93%
Last Active 04-29-20 1:18 pm
Joined 10-01-04
Review Comments 4,805
| Cinderella Ranked
My ranking for one of the best, most consistent and most underrated bands of the 80s hard rock movement. | | 4 |  | Cinderella
Heartbreak Station
The band's third album saw Keifer overcompensate in his attempt to distance himself from the glam movement and become the new Aerosmith, upsetting the balance between blues and hard rock which had made Long Cold Winter such a successful outing only two years earlier. The result is an uneven album, plagued with a few too many country-rock ballads, and lacking a touch in excitement when compared to the rest of their output - in short, Cinderella's own 'Native Tongue' or 'Keep the Faith'. There is undoubtedly still plenty to like across these fifty-odd minutes of music, but in the grand scheme of Cinderella's otherwise stellar discography, Heartbreak Station finds itself inexorably lingering at the back of the line. | | 3 |  | Cinderella
Still Climbing
Ah yes, the forgotten opus for Tom Keifer and Co. Coming out with a glam rock album in 1994 - even one that is more denim than hairspray - was a risky proposition in and of itself, and the fact that this was also a COMEBACK album (the band having been forced to stay off the limelight for the better part of four years due to Keifer's personal health problems) spelled the death sentence for Cinderella's fourth and final album. And yet Still Climbing is an incredibly strong record in its own right, never quite reaching the dizzying heights of the group's first two albums, but asserting itself with aplomb thanks to tracks like Hot and Bothered (famously a part of the Wayne's World soundtrack), Blood From A Stone or Through The Rain - the latter being perhaps the best power ballad the group ever wrote. Though doomed from the start, this is one late glam-era record definitely worth tracking down - or, at least, sampling through one of the group's Greatest Hits compilations. | | 2 |  | Cinderella
Long Cold Winter
The group's sophomore effort sees them (partially) shed the big, loud, lycra-and-headbands glam approach in favour of a more stripped down look and sound, often reminiscent of what Aerosmith had offered earlier that same decade. Make no mistake, there are still big licks aplenty to be found here (nowhere more so than on advance single and smash hit Gypsy Road), but there is also a marked increase in blues-rock sensibilities, manifested in such tracks as opener Bad Seamstress Blues / Falling Apart At The Seams, hidden gem Second Wind or the duo of big power ballads, which owe more to (again) Aerosmith than they do to Poison or Warrant. The result is possibly the band's strongest record from an objective perspective; this reviewer, however, has a subjective soft spot for another of their albums... | | 1 |  | Cinderella
Night Songs
The follow-up may be the objectively better album, but there is no denying the band's glammed-up debut as one of the best efforts of the period. Though still trying to find their identity, and attempting to adhere to a formula that was not truly theirs, the group nonetheless craft an album full of top-tier Aerosmith-meets-Motley-Crue bangers, from the opening salvo of Night Songs and Shake Me right through to closer Back Home Again, which brings this top-notch hard rock journey full circle. Not every song is a ten-on-ten winner, but all of them are strong enough to warrant this album its reputation as one of the gems of the more 'serious' strand of 80s glam metal - even despite the lurid name, logo, cover and fashion choices... | |
JDubb
02.20.21 | Oh no, you didn’t!!! Purposefully blocked this band out of my mind for the last 30+ years. | TheNotrap
02.21.21 | SAAAAAAAAVE MEEE | rockarollacola
02.22.21 | I missed this and I am very sorry. Cinderella fucks. |
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