Welcome to another edition of From My Collection. This past Monday, August 2, three classic glam metal albums turned 35: Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In, Vinnie Vincent Invasion’s self titled debut, and Cinderella’s Night Songs. Taking these anniversaries and the recent passing of Cinderella guitarist Jeff LaBar into consideration, I figured it was only right to revisit Night Songs. It’s more than just another glam metal album. It musically and aesthetically bridged the gap between the genre’s first and second waves, falling smack dab in the middle of both. Today’s essay will attempt to explain why. Now pour yourself a shot of gasoline and get ready to hit 116. This is Night Songs.
Like many of the glam metal bands we know and love, Cinderella’s story begins much earlier than we think. The band formed in 1982 by frontman Tom Keifer and bassist Eric Brittingham. They went through a series of lineup changes, with former guitarist Michael Kelly Smith and drummer Tony Destra going on to form Britny Fox AKA Cinderella 2: Electric Boogaloo. Having discovered/nurtured the likes of Angel, Micki Free, and the mighty Van Halen, Gene Simmons attempted to take Cinderella under his wing as well, only to be shut down by PolyGram. It wasn’t until 1986 that things really gelled together.
Guitarist Jeff LaBar joined the fold, just in time for Cinderella to be “discovered” yet again, this time by up and coming pretty boy Jon Bon Jovi. Right on the verge of becoming a household name, you’d think Bon Jovi would have better luck putting in the good word for Cinderella, right? Wrong. Much like the “God of Thunder”, Mr. “Runaway” got the no go from his A&R people too. Only JBJ wasn’t so quick to give up. He persisted until Mercury broke down and signed Cinderella. This is Jon Bon Jovi’s single greatest contribution to music and mankind and you’re not changing my mind.
Without a drummer in tow, Cinderella’s debut, Night Songs, was recorded with session drummer Jody Cortez. Fred Coury would round the lineup out right after recording was finished. He’d arrive to appear on the album’s iconic cover, music videos, and accompanying tour. When it came time to tour, mainstream hard rock and metal was at its commercial peak. Bands like Mötley Crüe, Ratt, and Twisted Sister were now full blown arena headliners. Even veterans like Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest were readjusting their sound and style to accommodate the changing landscape. Musically speaking, Night Songs captured this change better than just about any other glam metal release that year.
The album opens with my personal favorite Cinderella song, “Night Songs”. Most glam metal bands went for fast and fiery first impressions (i.e. Mötley Crüe’s “Live Wire”, W.A.S.P.’s “I Wanna Be Somebody”, Twisted Sister’s “What You Don’t Know”, etc.). Not Cinderella. They lured the listener in with a slow, ominous, atmospheric epic. Before you know it, you’re drowning in sea of monolithic riffs, ribcage rattling rhythms, and the distinct vocals of Keifer. Unlike other glam metal singers who prided themselves on clean, melodic deliveries (i.e. Jack Russell, Don Dokken, etc.), Keifer’s voice had more in common with AC/DC’s Brian Johnson and Nazareth’s Dan McCafferty: sharper than barbed wire and hotter than a Texas sun in the middle of July.
“Shake Me” is the first of three singles released off Night Songs. It’s indicative of the change that was occurring within glam metal, with less focus on heaviness and musicianship, and more focus on hooks and accessibility. This practice would become a mainstay of the genre, paving the way for bands like Warrant, Firehouse, and Winger to achieve similar success in the coming years. The second wave glam-a-ganza continues with the immortal “Nobody’s Fool”. Laugh all you want, but this is one of the finest power ballads ever written. Put it next to tripe like Bon Jovi’s “I’ll Be There for You”, Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”, and Europe’s “Carrie”, just to name a few. They don’t even stand a chance. “Nobody’s Fool” has it all: heartfelt lyrics, passionate vocals, twin guitar harmonies, and lush synthesizers. It’s no wonder it made its way all the way to #13 on the Billboard Top 40.
If “Shake Me” and “Nobody’s Fool” focused on the “glam” side of glam metal, “Nothin’ for Nothin'” shifted gears towards the “metal” side of things. Because of their poppy hits and eventual reinvention as a bluesy hard rock band, many seem to forget Cinderella’s heavy metal roots. The fact is that they were just as influenced by 70s hard rock and the NWOBHM as any other 80s metal band. “Nothin’ for Nothin'” is proof with its aggressive metallic bite, while side A closer “Once Around the Ride” comes off like an 80s spin on good ol’ fashioned Aerosmith style sleaze. Although Tyler, Perry and company had sobered up by now, their once debaucherous spirits live on through “Once Around the Ride”.
As we flip Night Songs over to side B, we’re greeted by the raucous “Hell on Wheels”. Sounding like a cross between a lost NWOBHM single and a metallized Lynyrd Skynyrd jam, it’s one of the heaviest and most underrated songs in the Cinderella catalog. “Somebody Save Me” takes us back to the MTV/FM rock radio territory explored on side A. It was unsurprisingly released as the album’s third and final single, and sounds like it was written with that very purpose in mind. Like “Shake Me” and “Nobody’s Fool”, “Somebody Save Me” boasts a chorus that will live rent free in your head for weeks, if not months. You’ve been warned!
“In From the Outside” falls into the sleaze category alongside “Once Around the Ride”, but comes off as quirky and loose. It’s the same style Faster Pussycat would perfect a short 12 months later. Meanwhile, “Push, Push” is lead by a riff eerily similar to prime Def Leppard, specifically “Let It Go”. As the old saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Taking it all home is the undisputed heavyweight champion of Night Songs, “Back Home Again”. There’s no retro hard rock sleaze or polished pop metal ear candy to be heard here, just muscular old school heavy metal. I always wondered what a full metal Cinderella album would sound like. If “Back Home Again”, “Hell on Wheels”, and “Nothin’ for Nothin'” are any indication, such an effort would’ve stood up to Shout at the Devil and Metal Health.
After achieving superstar status with Night Songs straight out of the gate, Cinderella soldiered onwards with their second album, Long Cold Winter (1988). The singles continued much of the same characteristics as those off Night Songs (“Gypsy Road”, “Coming Home”, “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)”). However, as an entire album, it was a complete reinvention. While Bon Jovi and Poison reveled in the limelight as pop metal’s poster boys, Cinderella utilized acoustic guitars, blues riffs, and southern fried flavor to cook up a brand of hard rock more in common with the pioneers of the early 70s. This amalgamation of hard rock, blues rock, southern rock, and roots rock was further explored on Heartbreak Station (1990) and Still Climbing (1994).
Between the band’s unexpected breakup in 2014 and the untimely passing of LaBar on July 14, 2021, we’ll unfortunately never hear or see Cinderella again. Although their contribution to the hard and heavy pantheon may be brief in comparison to 20+ album veterans like UFO and Saxon, their music lives on in the heart and souls of every child of the 80s. Even if you weren’t a metalhead, you couldn’t turn on MTV without seeing the videos for “Nobody’s Fool” or “Shake Me”. And to think it all started with a collection of Night Songs.