THIS TOM KIEFER SOLO ALBUM MAY ACTUALLY BE NOT-AWFUL

Cinderella were always, in my opinion, one of the most underrated hair metal bands. Part of that probably has to do with the fact that they did what ALL bands should do and quit while they were ahead (they haven’t released a studio album since 1994’s Still Climbing, which means they’ve been an unadulterated legacy band for eighteen years now — that’s 70% of their career!). But a lot of it has to do with the very simple fact that they wrote really good songs. I mean fuck dude, nothing would make me happier right now than to start chugging some shitty beers and throw on Long Cold Winter at full volume.

So. Yesterday our own John Retardy modestly proposed that singers like Cinderella’s Tom Kiefer (or “Tom Keefher”) should be euthanized and turned into glue once they lose their vocals abilities. And while I agree with Mr. Retardy that Tom doesn’t sound all that great in recent live Cinderella footage, I just watched the below video of him performing a new solo track called “Ask Me Yesterday,” and, the silly song title aside, it’s actually not half-bad! Kiefer’s voice sounds terrific, which suggests that the issue isn’t that he’s lost his ability to sing — he just can’t really Robert Plant it anymore, which is fine, since even Robert Plant can’t Robert Plant it anymore. But at the end of the day, it’s good songwriting FTW. Shocker!

Kiefer’s solo album should be out early next year.

-AR