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

I am torn between All Through The Night and When You Were Mine

OMG when you Were You Mine because it is the best. That's why.

My favorite album cover ever. Album itself? Also way up there.

but All Through The Night has the hookiest chorus ever

I do like several of these btw but it's no question for me re: WYWM. <3 both her and Prince's version so much.

The first side is wall to wall classic. I may go with "When You Were Mine" because people go apeshit on a dance floor whenever I've heard it played. I love the Cure synthesizers slathered over it.

I voted Time After Time, because it still makes me feel 10 years old when I hear it.

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

When You Were Mine is totally classic though. Such a great version

All Through the Night is good but it's no WYWM.

yeah

I was thinking I should watch that show tbh.

ALSO this is the best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26JbYtyLbYQ

Everything about it. Just so you know.

this German tv appearance is awesome fyi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inN5bdQy4n4

Time After Time, but damn is this a great album.

Time after Time does make me shed a couple if it catches me off guard. It is really beautiful.

MONEY

AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH First cassette I ever bought with my own money -- I love every single song so much, dressed up as Cyndi for more than one Halloween because it meant I could wear my crazy clothes. Now I am an adult and I can wear my crazy clothes whenever I want! Cyndi taught me that.

I like Money Changes Everything and All Through the Night (the oooOOOOOOooooo at the end makes me so weepy), but I also like every single version of When You/U Were Mine that I've ever heard.

tbrr this whole album makes me weepy

LL otm

She's probably my most favorite artist -- I think of her like, idk, Wonderwoman. I thought she was so amazing when I was a little girl

I stole colored plastic clothes pegs from Mum's laundry basket to wear in my hair at primary school, she was SO mad at me

'money changes everything' is so intense. she sings the fuck out of that one.

always skip 'time after time' because it has sad personal associations for me and always bums me out, but it's shimmeringly gorgeous.

In case you've never heard the original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aLNwOxPsjg

I saw her in 2006 and this woman in the front row answered her cell phone while Cyndi was singing. Cyndi stopped singing, asked for the phone, and when the woman shot her a look Cyndi was all "Don't you look at me like that honey, I didn't grow up in the Bronx for nothing that I won't come down there and TAKE the phone and jam it up your ass." The woman put the phone away immediately.

<3

Time After Time.

xxxpost ENBB that video was incredible

omigod! Wasn't that perf at the AMA or the Grammys? I watched it in early '85 or whatever and my mom said, "Why is she always barefoot? Has she a foot allergy?"

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

I started listening to that the other day! I need to finish it

can someone edit out the howard parts and repost that?

eh I don't mind howard if I wait like, idk, years in between bouts of listening to him :)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wow that's a pretty cool spread, ty ILM!

am surprised When U Were Mine didn't get more votes given the early love it was getting

I once read some Klosterman essay where he called Girls Just Wanna Have Fun the saddest song ever.

I will never forget that. Fuck him.

kloster-not otm-man

"Witness" and "Yeah Yeah" would be the two best songs on a lot of other albums.

ugh i missed this!

back "during" occupy i made a mix to listen to on the way to/from the camp called OCCUPIED WHEN LIGHT IS ON and the closing track was "money changes everything" and it was the best thing ever because it is the best song ever.

Yeah Yeah is nice, hard to be a winner up against so many booming trax

completely missed this. when you were mine got shafted here but tbh i probably would have voted for "money changes everything"

should i go see her on the she's so unusual 30th anniversary tour? (the answer isn't that hard but the trick will be getting my girlfriend to come along w/ me)

this might be my favorite album of all time, or at least the album i've loved the longest. i had my mom buy me a copy when I was 6!

still think the arrangements/production is kind of the apotheosis of whatever it is. big drums/synth heavy/eclectic 80s pop-rock. so maybe little textural things here that tug at my heart and then some just beautiful codas and instrumental passages and shit. they should plant a copy of this on every planet we explore.

The clips of the tour I've seen online make it look like she takes breaks between the songs to just chat with the crowd, and she's hilarious anyway, so it's like seeing a rock concert and comedy show at the same time.

I just heard "Right Track, Wrong Train" for the first time! Damn. It's crazy.

she's really going for a post-New Wave Yoko or B-52's approach vocally.

Go!! I saw her like, 8 years ago at a little outdoor show and she was fantastic. Does great crowdwork, sounds great -- she's a born performer in the holistic meaning ie she lives for the whole experience (crowd, music, arranging) and not just the singing.

FUCK

she played in Sacto in JUNE ugggggh how did I miss this goddamnit

well, that's settled. i guess i'm going!

Maura on the masterwork

http://www.complex.com/music/2013/10/cyndi-lauper-shes-so-unusual

*APPLAUSE*

so, the deluxxe edition of this came out. it's overpriced so just download it illegally.

some of the outtakes are pretty cool. the keeper is a punky, minimalist synth-and-raw-guitar version of "girls just want to have fun" w/ some different lyrics. there's also a song i don't think i'd heard before, "rules and regulations"--it's a decent ballad.

maura's post above is a decent example of what it is, but like most (almost all) rock criticism it seems to be terrified of actually talking about the music. it's just the particular spin on 80s femininity that made this album so righteous, it's a genius pop record--the songwriting, the arrangements, Cyndi's voice, the mix of sonic influences and touchstones.... i guess that stuff is hard to write about so nobody does.

I'LL KISS YOU KISS YOU KISS YOU

I think part of the genius of the album is that she was a grown-ass Woman when she released it...she wasn't a girl telling other girls who to be, it was like a commandment. Cyn was 30, reporting to me, a 8 year oldgirl, from the front lines of womanhood with this massive voice & a fully realized personality, telling ME to have fun and it seemed stupid to my parents but goddamn it it meant something to me & it still does. i love that she worked so hard before the album was even a thing, you can hear it in every song, those dues are fucking PAID

every song sounds like she *knows* shit, it's still like a bible to me for the strength she has in that voice

which prob sounds corny but it's true. so. hi.

not corny. booming post.

yeah. i agree with all of it. i just think that not enough people talk about the album as a great pop record--and the things you talk about are only part of the reason it is that.

and yeah the tightness of the album is a testament to how much work and ambition was put into it, definitely. since the blue angel LP flopped she knew that--pushing 30--this was her big chance to leave an impression.

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