Cinderella : Heartbreak Station

LIKE A HOT SMOKING PISTOL 

ON A SATURDAY NIGHT..

 Heartbreak Station

 is the third

 studio album

 by American

 Rock Band 

Cinderella 

released in 1990 

through

 Mercury Records. 

It reached No.19

 in the Billboard

 200 US chart 

on 

December 21, 1990,

and went platinum

 for shipping a 

million albums 

on 

February 26, 1991.

Three singles were released, 

two of which charted 

on the 

Billboard's Hot 100

 in 1991. 

"Shelter Me" 

peaked at No. 36 

and the title track 

climbed to No. 44. 

"The More Things Change" 

did not chart.

It is the band's

 last album

 to feature

 drummer 

Fred Coury

 before he 

left the band 

the following year, 

although he did 

provide drums

 on one song

 on their next album

 Still Climbing.

Background and Production

Heartbreak Station 

marked a shift 

in the band's sound, 

wherein they moved 

further away from 

the glam metal style 

they had in 

Night Songs 

and 

Long Cold Winter 

and took a 

bluesier, 

stripped-down approach.

 In an interview with

 the Los Angeles Daily News

 a month before

 the album's release, 

when asked about 

the band's stylistic shift 

from their prior albums,

 lead vocalist

 Tom Keifer stated, 

"The sound has progressed

 from the last album. 

We produced it from a rawer,

 simpler approach. 

We stripped it down 

from a production standpoint,

 so there's not a lot 

of reverb or overdubs." 

Keifer also cited 

blues as a 

large influence 

on his songwriting

 in the album.

John Paul Jones,

 the former bassist of 

Led Zeppelin,

 arranged the strings 

for two songs

 on 

Heartbreak Station; 

the band requested

 Jones's help 

after they 

were impressed 

with

 orchestral arrangements 

Jones had contributed to 

songs by

 The Rolling Stones 

and

 Donovan.

In a retrospective interview

 with Classic Rock Revisited 

in 2013, 

Keifer reflected on his 

songwriting approach 

and his feelings towards 

the band's sound in 

Heartbreak Station, 

stating that, "

We grew out of those

 '80s' processed slick things. 

That is the thing that 

was most intentional. 

Your writing and playing

 grows and grows, 

and it is organic, 

and it just happens." 

Keifer discussed his 

disillusionment with the

 polished sound

 of 80s rock t

hat had been present 

on the band's

 prior records 

and that he instructed

 the album's

 mixing engineer, 

Michael Barbiero

, to give the songs 

a rawer feel because

 "everybody was caught up

 in that whole '80s' sound.

 I told him it was time

 to do something different."

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