CD review CINDERELLA ‘The Mercury Years’ – Box-set

(*/10) American rock band Cinderella is one of the most influential bands when it comes to hardrock and glam metal. In contrary to many other bands in this genre, Cinderella didn’t came for the US West Coast, but was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The start of the Cinderella was in 1982 and it was the beginning of an impressive career that lead to four studio albums and a huge fanbase at the time.

Already the debut ‘Night Songs’, which was released in 1986, was a tremendous success that probably couldn’t have been foreseen to such an extent. The album achieve triple platinum in the United Sates including a Top 13 single release, which was ‘Nobody’s Fool’. Songs like the title tracks as well as ‘Push, Push’ and ‘Shale Me’ are excellent hardrock songs, representing timeless music that’s still relevant after all these years.

After such a glorious start, expectations for the sophomore album were sky high. ‘Long Cold Winter’ was the highly anticipated second album and it was as successful as the debut. Again triple platinum in the US is mentioned on the scoreboard and including single releases that again went right into the charts. The album was a bit more blues-based than ‘Night Songs’, with the title track being a real highlight on an album full of rock anthems. The beauty with Cinderella’s music was the combination of excellent hooks and melodies which made their music attractive for the mainstream while the sound included also enough edges to differentiate their music from bands like Poison and others. And last but not least it was Tom Keifer’s hoarse vocals that made the difference.

Things cooled down a bit with the third longplayer. ‘Heartbreak Station’ was and still is another well-done hardrock album, but couldn’t connect to the huge success of the first two records. Still, ‘Heartbreak Station’ achieved a platinum status in the US and features excellent songs such as ‘Shelter Me’ and ‘The More Things Change’.

In 1991, Tom Keifer lost his voice due to paresis, which delayed the work on the fourth album. Finally, in 1994, ‘Still Climbing’ hit the record stores, but didn’t have the same brilliant songs as fans knew from the first three albums. Some line-up changes didn’t support a great continuation either and it was in 1995 when Cinderella went on a hiatus.

A year later some activities in the Cinderalla camp could be recognized, but there was no more studio album added to the bands discography ever since ‘Still Climbing’.

Also 2018 isn’t a year with a new studio album, but it is Caroline Records that releases a 5 CDs containing box set, featuring all the mentioned four studio records plus a fifth CD with B-Sides and live tracks. The CD’s are packaged in a shell box that also includes a 16-pages that has been approved by Tom Keifer. All in all it’s this box set, ‘The Mercury Years’, that provides fans of excellent and bluesy hardrock with a lot of music that’s as good as timeless.

(*/10)

Tracklist:

Disc 1: Night Songs