Released: 1986
Tracks: Night Songs; Shake Me; Nobody’s Fool; Nothin’ For Nothin’; Once Around the Ride; Hell on Wheels; Somebody Save Me; In From the Outside; Push Push; Back Home Again
Best track: maybe Shake Me or Somebody Save Me…there are a lot of great songs here
Track to skip: Hell on Wheels
More 80’s metal! I really think that if Cinderella hadn’t been marketed and “made up” as a glam metal band, they would’ve been taken as serious metal band. You don’t get that “glam” visual while just listening to the CD (ignore that awful album cover) and I think that really helps it. For some reason, growing up I never really saw many Cinderella videos and so for me they were always a band that I pretty much only knew from listening to them on the radio or on tapes. I never saw them as glam metal. Yes, they had huge hair and wore make up, but when you compare them with a band like Poison, whose debut also came out in ’86, it’s completely obvious that Cinderella has nothing to do with that kind of music. While the band is still tight as hell, they had such a great swagger, rawness and dirtiness to them. Cinderella reminds me of an 80’s version of the Stones or Aerosmith in their heyday. They definitely were shortchanged by getting lumped in with the likes of Poison and Bon Jovi.
Then again, those background vocals on Nothin’ For Nothin’ certainly put a damper on all that.
OK, so they straddled the line. Still, I consider them closer to *proper* heavy metal and not glam.
This is a pretty damn good debut album and they showed what variations to metal a band from Philly could bring. I love that the opener, the title track, sets a mood of creepiness and you also get a reprise in the uncomfortable main single, Nobody’s Fool. I guess in some circles Nobody’s Fool was considered a power ballad, but it’s so far removed from that both musically and lyrically. It’s still pretty heavy and I remember being totally creeped out by it when it came out. Tom Keifer’s got such a great growl and his screams sound like some creature is about to attack you. There are a lot great songs on this disc – Nobody’s Fool, Shake Me, Somebody Save Me, In From the Outside…man, I love the swagger on In From the Outside. It’s got some great guitar playing on it too. Hell on Wheels is the only song I actively skip. There’s not much to it – basically a dumb song about how they’re a great live band and will blow you away. Big Whoop. While Push Push and Once Around the Ride are weaker tracks , there are still enough moments in them that I enjoy.
Night Songs definitely set Cinderella apart from the rest of the metal bands by bringing out the stronger blues and country influences. They’d really jump into that territory on their next two albums, though. Right off the bat, Cinderella was a band you had to take seriously. They had some seriously good guitar chops and Tom Keifer is a hell of a songwriter.
Rating: 84
February 8, 2012, 
11:02 am
Write a comment