Heartbreak Station

Heartbreak Station is the third album, on which Cinderella shed their glam sheen and stepped deep into blues, country and Southern rock. Released on Mercury in 1990 and recorded in places like Bearsville, New York, it finds Tom Keifer playing dobro, mandolin and lap steel in pursuit of a rawer, drier sound. Keifer has since called this his favorite production, one that moved away from the processed 1980s sound. It is also the last album to feature drummer Fred Coury. From the horn-tinged opener “The More Things Change,” on the title track and the sweeping “Winds of Change,” Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones arranged the strings. The single “Shelter Me” reached number 36 in the US, and the aching title-track ballad number 44. The Bad Company-like drive of “Electric Love” and the shading of “Dead Man's Road” also stand out. Though it did not match the first two albums commercially, it is often praised critically as the band’s finest — a record of mature songcraft.