POLLS Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper SHE'S SO UNUSUAL album poll

hahaha yeah AL it was from some awards show around that time but I forget which.

I'm gonna have to dig up the pic of me in my Cyndi Lauper clothes with 0 front teeth and 0 shame. Pretty sure I know where to look.

DO THAT YES

I need to see that LL

New Year's Eve 1983 MTV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5K8vBJ1nKI

Also the fact that she was 30 when she was doing this is so awesome to me

holy shit that first side is such an amazing thing

This MTV NYE thing is A M A Z I N G

Guys I'm listening to it now and damn it's just so good.

yeah the NYE performance is balls-out, she sounds so incredible

guess I need to listen to this full album huh

yes you do

"Witness" is not bad either

"I'll Kiss You" is the sleeper.

If her Goonies track had been included as "Good Enough" then we'd have a perfect album.

otm

and yeah I love 'Ill Kiss You'

"When You Were Mine," but can I put in an honorable mention for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cj5IyCA08A

I watched her reality show this weekend, it's kind of terrible but I love her anyway. She's the best

Knew that would be a VGrrl post :-)

I remember a Time Magazine story on Cyndi and Madonna at the time of this album; they were equally big stars at that point. (Then the whole unfortunate pro wrestling thing - but some great tracks on the next few albums.)

Anyway, a v classic album, have to vote Time After Time.

True Colors was the first time an artist I adored disappointed me.

OMFG that german TV clip looks so amazing i'm kind of afraid to click it

no it's rad, she has a huge amazing Cure-looking stage

I need to try to remember to look up the great sentence Matos wrote abt WYWM in his Prince book when I get home. I don't want to mess it up from memory

xxpost I didn't think the wrestling was unfortunate! but that totally outs me as a crazy fangirl AND a wrestling fan

Different album, but now I'm looking for this amazing Japanese tv performance she gave of "I Drove All Night" where she was carried in on the shoulders of some buff servant men, had on a long red wig and looked positively amazing and it's not there anymore. This is a SAD DAY.

;_;

I remember that!!!

This is basically impossible

I remember a Time Magazine story on Cyndi and Madonna at the time of this album; they were equally big stars at that point.

I very distinctly remember standing at the bottom of the staircase (which should be in the photo, if i can find it) and my mom saying that she thought Cyndi was way more talented than Madonna, who was going to be a flash in the pan as far as she was concerned. I agreed with her iirc.

all through the night v. time after time

Yeah, there's a reason this poll was never done before. It's on my shortlist of perfect albums (every track is great). If you also figure in the equally-excellent b-sides and soundtrack cuts from that era ("Goonies R Good Enough", "Right Track Wrong Train", "Such A Thrill"), it's just such an amazing run.

i still agree with your mom, la lechera!

plaintive impassioned hope forever forward v. quiet melancholic time travel

it's raining today so, time after time

Cyndi's problem was thinking she was good for writing more than two songs per album.

lol i've never listened to this record before

lol it's amazing

So why were The Hooters so mediocre? (Weren't they?)

I liked the Hooters (and so did my mom)

They had some extremely crappy lyrics, but a lot of their songs were pretty good. One of them was about ~zombies~ (I think it was about religion but I was kind of focused on the zombies at 10)

ALL YOU ZOMBIES

i love that song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LE0KpcP05I

Hooters were plenty okay. I'm listening to "And We Danced" right now and it's still one of my mid-80s faves.

yeah the Hooters rule, at least what I know of their hits

When I talk about crappy lyrics, I mean shit like "she was my be bop baby at the union hall" and they had a horrible quasi reggae song too iirc. I liked Johnny B (lol Johnny B) and Zombies the best. My mom used to kid me for only liking the glummest songs. This was a year or two before I bought my first Cure album, so we could retroactively easily see where all of this was heading.

Is 'All You Zombies' actually abt zombies tho? Even as a kid I was like 'eh, this isn't about REAL zombies'

I remember their trademark melodica with a blowing tube attached to it-- for some reason we thought that instrument was called a 'Hooter' and hence their name

You don't have to hide anymore!

I willfully pretended it wasn't about religion, I think. But there were lyrics about Noah and Moses and whatnot.

i think someone even hollers "yeah they were the israelites!" at some point
(sorry cyndi)

Maybe they were coming from the same place as that guy who wrote horror novels abt Jesus Christ: Vampire etc

xpost !!! what?

Oh no I just got to 'All Through The Night' ;_;

the feelingz

time after time y'all

but I'm not going to be critical of any winner in this poll

by contrast (b/c this ALWAYS comes up) madonna was--what?--about 24 when her debut album came out.

(same year btw)

is the blue angel album any good? i've never heard it

It's very 50's retro, if you like that kind of thing. "I'm Gonna Be Strong" (reprised on her greatest hits album Twelve Deadly Cyns) is great, though; it's like Cyndi attempting a big powerhouse ballad and then realize partway through that she doesn't quite know how to approach this kind of thing, so she just spends the last bit wildly and awesomely over-emoting.

yeah this girls just wanna have fun demo is really cool!
like the raw little demo version of money changes everything too

i like the blue angel LP. a big part of cyndi's persona is on there, although as a whole it's more conceptual that her solo debut--a sort of kennedy-era rock n pop throwback, albeit with a modern-sounding rhythm section. fits into a certain strain of new wave (think b-52's but not quite as campy or dancy). i think it'd be better regarded if it hadn't been followed up by one of the greatest pop albums of all time.

god. greatest side one of all time

don't discount

I'LL KISS YOU
KISS YOU
KISS YOU

absolutely it's just that side one contains three songs in a row that make me burst into tears ("girls" -> "when you were mine" -> "time after time")

The weakness of the final few tracks has always made this album feel like a missed opportunity.

I love this record. Also I will say that her last several live videos - ACl, Soundstage - have been excellent. Her voice is still amazing.

The weakness of the final few tracks has always made this album feel like a missed opportunity.

― i’m still stanning (morrisp)

The fuck outta here! Albums don't have to be perfect, not when this one has four of the greatest songs ever recorded.

They don’t have to be, but this one could have been!

It’s one of my earliest memories of forming an opinion about an album – being disappointed at how this one peters out at the end, after such a dynamite side 1.

Albums don’t have to be perfect but this one damn near is. “Yeah Yeah” is the only really weak track on here; even the novelty-ish sorta title track knows well enough to not overstay it’s welcome.

feeling a lot of intense love for cyndi today <3 <3 <3

(not prompted by anything irl just listening to SSU for the first time in awhile and being slain anew)

Phew, your first post had me concerned

Lol I realized that after posting

I think it’s time I read her memoir. Don’t tell me if it’s lame

it’s good! she’s very forthright, interesting/sad upbringing
its a quick read

I'LL KISS YOU
I'LL KISS YOU
KISS YOU

A Zoomcast a friend and I did last week on "Time After Time": the original video, and then its use across three movies and a TV show over the next 40 years.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGiOS_X2o7U