"Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)" by Cinderella

Song#:  3636

Date:  09/03/1988

Debut:  74

Peak:  12

Weeks:  22

Genre:  Hard Rock, Glam Metal

Pop Bits:  This Philly band's 1986 debut album, Night Songs, became a #3 multi-platinum seller thanks to the #13 Pop hit "Nobody's Fool." After that success and subsequent tours, the band then had to get back into the studio to record a follow-up. Long Cold Winter was ready to go by the spring of '88 and to kick things off the label issued out a track titled "Gypsy Road" as the first single. While the tune would do fairly well at Rock getting to #20, the song wasn't the right one for a more mainstream audience and it failed to make the Pop chart (it would be reissued later in '89 and do better). Next up for release was the power ballad "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)." The song took off at Rock and became the band's first Top 10 hit reaching #10. That result along with support from MTV helped the song cross over to the Pop chart where it would go on to become their biggest hit peaking just outside the Top 10. In turn, the album would then peak at #10 and be certified platinum. A little over two months later it would go double-platinum.

ReduxReview:  I didn't hook into Cinderella at the time. The lone exception was "Coming Home" from Long Cold Winter. I bought that single, but for the most part ignored the band. I really shouldn't have. They had some solid tracks and this hit was one of them. Their blues-leaning rock set them a bit apart from the other hair metal bands at the time and I really should have listened to them more. This power ballad was ripe for crossover success and it should have gone Top 10. It was a well-written tune with pop sensibilities dressed up with big guitars and even bigger hair.

ReduxRating:  7/10

Trivia:  The video for this song was directed by Nick Morris. He had previously done videos for several top artists including Paul Young, Mr. Mister, Eddie Money, and Europe. Cinderella's record company hired him on to do two videos for the band's new album. They gave him a sizable budget and wanted the videos to be done in exotic locales. For "Gypsy Road," Morris took the band to Mexico and initially tried to shoot a video at the famous Mayan pyramid site of Chichén Itzá, but they were thwarted from doing so by local officials. Morris then found an unattended pyramid not far away and did the shoot. For "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)," Morris and the band went to Mono Lake, a saline soda lake located in Bodie National Forest in California. The picturesque lake had a ghost town nearby and the combo seemed perfect for a video shoot. Securing permission to use the sites was not difficult, but they could not disturb the natural landscape. The crew basically had to assemble everything in their cars and vans and carry it to the shoot locations as they could not drag, pull, or drive anything across the national park areas including the beach. Still, for one of the video's most memorable images, they somehow got a grand piano set up on the beach for lead singer Tom Keifer to sit and perform at. Of course this was back in the days when record companies were spending scads of money on music videos. That extravagance would, for the most part, go away when the music biz would change with the advent of streaming and services such as YouTube. Michael and Janet Jackson's 1995 video for "Scream" still remains the most expensive music video ever made coming it at $7 million.

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