Cinderella "Long Cold Winter (Mexico, Mercury Records, 834-612-2)

Long Cold Winter is the second studio album by American glam metal band Cinderella. It was released in July 1988 on Mercury Records.

The record reached No. 10 in the US and became double-platinum for shipping two million copies in the US by the end of the year, just as their debut album Night Songs had done earlier. It was later certified triple platinum. The album features four singles, which all charted on the Billboard Hot 100. "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)", the band's highest-charting single, reached No. 12, "The Last Mile" reached No. 36, "Coming Home" reached No. 20, and "Gypsy Road" hit No. 51, more than a year after the release of the album.

The album received mixed-to-positive reviews. Music critics remarked the shift of the band's musical style from the clichéd glam metal of their debut to more blues-oriented compositions, but they did not agree in the evaluation of the songs' quality. Contemporary reviewers criticized the album for being "too bluesy" and too derivative of other more famous bands' influences. Only Rock Hard reviewer considered Long Cold Winter "a surprisingly strong rock'n'roll album, rough, unpolished, powerful, but still melodious", and praised Keifer's vocals and the level of songwriting.

Modern reviews are similarly polarized. Steve Huey of AllMusic reviewed Long Cold Winter as "a transition album for Cinderella, mixing pop-metal tunes with better hooks than those on Night Songs with a newfound penchant for gritty blues-rock à la the Stones or Aerosmith", and further explained his rating by saying "[not] all of the songs are memorable, but most of them are". Canadian journalist Martin Popoff was harsher in his judgement and wrote that Cinderella strived to be "a next Stones or Aerosmith, not realizing that such talents are both rare and natural, and that without the gift and conviction, [their] attempt reeks of imitation and crass commercialism." Twenty-two years after its release, Geoff Barton re-evaluated the album for the British magazine Classic Rock, praised the band for their change of musical style and called Long Cold Winter "a minor classic." In 2019, Chuck Eddy of Rolling Stone also praised the album and wrote that "in retrospect Long Cold Winter ranks with any blues-rock of the Eighties".

Track listing

All music is composed by Tom Keifer except "If You Don't Like It" by Keifer and Eric Brittingham.

1. "Bad Seamstress Blues/Fallin' Apart at the Seams" 5:19
2. "Gypsy Road" 3:55
3. "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)" 5:56
4. "The Last Mile" 3:51
5. "Second Wind" 3:59
6. "Long Cold Winter" 5:24
7. "If You Don't Like It" 4:10
8. "Coming Home" 4:56
9. "Fire and Ice" 3:22
10. "Take Me Back" 3:17

Total length: 43:51

Early PDO pressing with 'MADE IN USA BY PDO' on the inner hub, no SID codes.

Issued with a 4-panel fold-out insert.

Recording information:

Basic tracks Recorded at Bearsville Studios.

Overdubs Recorded at Kajem Studios.

Mixed at Bearsville Studios.

Andy Johns – producer, engineer

Thom Cadley – assistant engineer

Ryan Dorn – overdubs engineer

Steve Thompson, Michael Barbiero – mixing

George Cowan – mixing assistant