Love_Industry wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 5:14 am
Tommy2Tone84 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 4:01 am
No. Slip of the Tongue still went platinum and had a very successful tour. They ended it by headlining Donington that year.
I think the sheen did start to fade because everyone realized it was the Cov Show, and later, there were whinings and rumblings of not liking Steve Vai. I loved all of it.
To this day I can’t explain the fickle fan base of Cinderella. Maybe they strayed too far from Night Songs? Maybe it was too much Long Cold Winter? I like all three records and felt they deserved a bump up to the next level on Heartbreak. How they lost 2.5 million in sales on that one from their previous two is unexplainable to me all these years later. It’s not like they went from Pride to a Big Game drop in quality.
I like Slip of the Tongue too, Vai was great there and also with Roth and Alcatrazz and the SOTT tour was the first time I saw and met the band so I love that era too. But they lost even more in sales than Cinderella. From 8 mil to just one, that's quite a backlash. No wonder Geffen dropped them.
Heartbreak was a drop in quality but you're right it wasn't as bad as Big Game, HitNF or something. But who was buying all those Cinderella albums? Was there a fanbase of Cinderellatards or was it mostly casuals who needed to see the new single in rotation on MTV? Headlining 71 arena shows sounds respectable, can't see Great White or Dokken doing that.
I never saw Cinderella live but they were never close to headlining arenas in Sweden. They were going to open for Priest on Ram It Down but got kicked off as Priest didn't need them to sell tickets. We got Bonfire instead.
Aside from two fillers, Slip is a solid effort. Alcatrazz wasn’t big here and I never bothered to check them out until the post Napster era. I was a Vai solo fan, DLR Band and WS. I would have been perfectly happy had he done double duty of solo shred guy while Cov was off supergrouping with Jimmy Page and they continued on sporadically with WS in the 90s.
I don’t know when Geffen dropped Coverdale as Coverdale was still on Geffen when Coverdale Page was released. Restless Heart was released on EMI but didn’t get a US release at the time. CP went platinum at the height of Grunge so I don’t know what the deal was there other than Roberta and his manager sabotaged the US tour and further albums by coercing Jim’s balls back into Bob’s purse.
I think some of WS’s problem was it was the Dave Coverdale show. A good chunk of his fanbase is loyal to Sykes. I don’t know why given Sykes’s anti-social, recluse patterned behavior. Cov should’ve kept Aldridge and Sarzo on retainer. Vand was always a weak link for me. I can take him or leave him as a secondary guitarist but would not accept him as their lead guitarist. It appears Coverdale must’ve felt the same way as he never toured States side with Adrian in the lead spot, carrying the band.
Hair metal fans are way more fickle than you average Boomer Eagles and Stones fan. Fleetwood Mac did have big drop off between Rumours and Tusk. So did AC/DC between BIB andFTATR. The early mid 90s was a weird and disheartening time. 80s Bands who got dropped shouldn’t have. Some bands like Axl N Roses should’ve been dropped but were not. Motley should have been dropped too.
BG and HitNF are borderline embarrassing, HitNF especially. Vest were overrated
I didn’t feel Heartbreak was a big drop off in quality. Did it “rock” quite as much as their first two? Maybe not. It was more laid back but I found the quality of the songs on par with Winter. VH didn’t get dropped when FW initially tanked here nor did AC/DC when their sales slipped dramatically during the Brian Johnson years. The record business doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. A lot of it seems based on ad hocking, throwing it up on the wall to see if it sticks and perceptions of hipness and coolness. Many suits and artists dehumanize us here in the fanbase.