Cinderella

Tom Keifer is a cool cat and sings like one.  

Cinderella is one of those bands that flashed through quickly in the late 80s and vaporized in the early 90s when alternative and other genres took over and MTV stopped playing music. They only put out four albums from 1986 to 1994. The debut Night Songs is still a cool 80s rock album. "Nobody's Fool" is still one of my top 100 songs of all time. Their 1988 album Long Cold Winter was their biggest hit with the huge MTV single "Don't know what you got till it's gone." A piano based ballad like that is sometimes a curse, but it's a beautiful song. Guns N Roses took the same recipe a few years later with "November Rain" and made it work. But Long Cold Winter had a few other fun rock singles and the album as a whole is a beauty. "The Last Mile", "Gypsy Road", and "Fire and Ice", and "Coming Home" are great songs. "The title track is an awesome blues based song. 

The final two albums were flops, but there are a few cool tracks on there. "Heartbreak Station" from 1990's Heartbreak Station album is a great song, but two many tracks sounded too 80s. The final album Still Climbing out out in 1994, same thing. A couple of great ballads, but the rock songs just try too hard. They weren't showing an evolution into anything. 

Tom Keifer has a unique voice, great guitar playing, and great songwriting ability. Fred Coury is a great drummer. Eric Brittingham and the late Jeff LeBar were strong musicians too. 

This is a band I wish would've evolved into something really different. I wish they could've pushed Tom to go in a different writing direction. I wish they had had a really great producer to push them. They were capable. But in the end, his vocal approach (the scratchy cat technique) wasn't sustainable. Tom suffered vocal damage and the band members went their own ways. When I listened to a few of Tom's solo acoustic covers of Cinderella songs using his real voice (not the cat one), I wondered why they (or he) didn't just go that route. "Nobody's Fool" acoustic in his real voice is just as powerful! Go softer, more acoustic, still get to make music and do what you love. He's got a great real voice under the metal cat one. 

I believe they could've done more, but I'm grateful for the beautiful music they gave us.