#31 Cinderella - Long Cold Winter; The Ballad of The Power Ballad

ROCKTOBERFEST:  A Most Excellent Countdown of the 31 Most Bitchin Glam Metal Albums

#31 Cinderella – Long Cold Winter (Released 1988) 3x Platinum #10 Billboard Albums Chart

Tom Keifer (Wicked talented) – Vocals, Lead & Rhythm Guitars, harmonica

Jeff LaBar (The Love Child of Eddie Van Halen and Gene Simmons) – Lead &Rhythm Guitars

Eric Brittingham (Least Glam Metal Name EVAH~!) – Bass, Backing Vocals

Fred Coury (80's Snare to Die For) - Drums

The Ballad of the Power Ballad: Because Every Bad Boy Has His Soft Side

In a genre, filled with a bunch of men in drag that sing about getting laid every night to the accompaniment of heavy, chugging rhythm sections with flashy guitar pyrotechnics,  there is nothing that simultaneously made more sense and less sense than the power ballad.  

The most common power ballad trope as heard in power ballads such as Def Leppard’s Bringin On The Heartbreak and Poison’s Every Rose Has Its Thorn is that of heartbreak and relationship problems. Oddly enough these sexually promiscuous rockstars often could NOT figure out why they were breaking up with their gorgeous playmates. Geez, guys maybe if you listen to the other nine songs on the album you might have heard the clues that you left yourselves.  

Power ballads usually start off as traditional ballads with acoustic guitars or piano as the lead singer croons about his recent troubles. However, as the chords progress, a thumping rhythm section with wailing guitar riffs lead into a MASSIVE chorus usually with layered vocal harmonies. The song climaxes with a windy, flashy and bombastic guitar solo that leads into one last rendition of the chorus. 

The power ballad did not originate in the glam metal genre. The earliest one I can think of is Aerosmith’s 1973, Dream On, but throughout the 1970’s the power ballad was a tool of arena rock bands such as Journey and REO Speedwagon. (Journey sucks, but Speedwagon is a wicked guilty pleasure of mine). In 1985 that all changed, when Motley Crue released Home Sweet Home as a single and broke themselves into the mainstream. From 1981-1984, glam metal albums featured almost exclusively heavy metal songs. After this massive success, every band and band label raced to copy this success by releasing at least one if not multiple power ballads off albums. These songs were often the highest charting singles off the album usually breaking into the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 200 and were huge cash cows for all those involved. 

Cinderella’s Long Cold Winter features Cinderella’s most well-known song: Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until Its Gone, which is of course a power ballad. It is a pretty formulaic power ballad, but also very good power ballad, there is a reason there is a formula:

Here is the music video for Cinderella’s Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until Its Gone:

Cliché Title. Check.

Subject: Misunderstood Heartbreak. Check.

Piano & Acoustic Guitar Intro. Check. (RARE!)

A minute-in rhythm section kicks in. Check.

Harmonized chorus. Check.

Isolated setting: Mountainous region near a lake. Check.

Aggressive Bedroom Eyes from the Bassist. Check. (The bassists in glam metal bands are total creepers)

Kick-ass bridge. Check. (I LOVE THIS BRIDGE)

Wailing guitar solo. (Tom Keifer actually plays all the solos in this band, very impressive)

I would be remiss not mention how much I love Tom’s red and black sequined headdress yet his two-sizes too small cowboy hat is less appealing.  Tom Keifer’s strained, but powerful vocals lend themselves to the consistent production of wicked good power ballads. It is not even my favorite Cinderella power ballad (that honor goes to Nobody’s Fool).  

This song is not at all representative of the Cinderella sound as at least 75% of all Cinderella songs are not power ballads. Really, the power ballad is about one of the most un-metal things a metal band could produce. However, at the same time, if getting chicks and money are your number one priorities then the power ballad is the most sensible song to produce. Power ballads were definitely back in the day what we call “panty-droppers”. Chicks ate this sappy shit up and drove these albums up to multi-platinum status. Just like today as guys force themselves to listen to shitty dance-pop music at every party all in order to get laid, men of yesteryear kept themselves up-to-date on the latest power ballads. Now of course, power ballads had the mitigating factor that guitarists usually saved their best solos for power ballads, it allowed men to retain their coolness as they liked these sentimental tours de force. It was a win-win for everyone involved. 

Of course, the reason this album makes the list has a lot more to do with the other nine songs. The album begins with my favorite song off the album; Bad Seamstress Blues/Fallin' Apart at the Seams. I really want to know the story behind this song title. Given Cinderella penchant for wearing 18^th Century-garb that felt more at home at Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles than Motley Crue’s post-apocalyptic Sunset Strip, I feel  Bad Seamtress Blues could have had a hilarious original story.

This power blues stomper comes directly out of the Led Zep/Aerosmith playbook. This song highlights my favorite part of Cinderella, which is Fred Coury’s drum sound. The snare has that sick 80’s snappy, high reverb sound and this bass drum echos with power. 

The second song, Gypsy Road, is a favorite subject of glam metal artists: life on the road. As a usual this subject compares the band to a roving band of gypsies and it was the big hard-rock single off the album with an anthemic chorus. The Last Mile is another bluesy hard-rocker with a more melodic chorus. The last song on side one of the album, Second Wind, is a conventional Cinderella song.

Side two opens with the title track, Long Cold Winter, which assuredly was Cinderella most “artistic” song to date (clocking in at about 5:30 minutes this is one of the longest glam meat songs). The song is a slow dirge of a blue-rock song that bemoans the time spent away from his woman. Regardless of its credibility as an art piece, it is quite possibly the least glam metal album name ever. EVAH~! Glam metal is about partying, sex, drugs, sleaze, rock n roll and mischief. A “long cold winter” conjures just about the opposite of everything that is fun in this world. Of course, I abhor the cold so maybe I am overstating. The next song, If You Don’t Like It, is a return to Cinderella’s original metallic sound as it jettisons the blues to return to straight heavy metal riffing. Coming Home is a well-executed bluesy-ballad that sounds refreshing in a genre that focuses so heavily on the power ballad. The last two songs, Fire and Ice and Take Me Back are conventional Cinderella bluesy hard-rockers.

 

Cinderella is one of my favorite glam metal artists and SPOLIER ALERT: their debut album Night Songs will appear further down the line and I will better expound on the distinct traits of Cinderella. This blog was intended more to explain the concept of the power ballad by using a very stereotypical, but also very good power ballad.

Here’s my favorite song off the album: Bad Seamstress Blues/Fallin' Apart at the Seams to play us out: