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

I was looking for some of Cyndi's Mona Flambe appearances (e.g. backing up Koko B. Ware's "Grab Them Cakes" on American Bandstand) but it looks like they've been taken down. You can't sleep on her WWF affiliation as a major aspect of her fame around this period.

I love Change of Heart

love this acoustic version

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

it must make her crazy to have to sit down to sing

One time when I was moving out of a house I lived in during college I'd packed up all the devices that could play music except for my turntable, and I pulled this out of my record collection and played it on repeat for like four hours. It's been one of my favorite albums ever since. Another time when I lived in another college house that had no furniture in it, a good friend was visiting and I put a shitty portable turntable w/ a built in speaker on the floor in an empty doorless room adjoining the kitchen while we made dinner and him and I fake-nervously slow danced to "Time After Time" together like we were at a junior high prom. It was extremely endearing.

<3 <3 <3

"Change Of Heart" was a worthy post-SSU single, but otherwise, yeah: she peaked right out of the gate.

"I Drove All Night" is my favorite song of hers, and it's from the third album in 1989, so the quality didn't exactly fall off a cliff.

She's So Unusual is fking awesome, there's no beating that. But Night To Remember is a great album, much better than True Colors; I also really like Sisters of Avalon, and that last covers album she did, Memphis Blues was really good too. She never really disappeared imo, it's weird to hear ppl say that

oh and before I forget, check this out: 7 months pregnant performing on Leno in 96. Insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhAyBROa38k

I love how 100% she is.

She never really disappeared imo, it's weird to hear ppl say that.

From the charts she did. She had lots of Top 10 hits between 83 and 86, then one in 89 and then that was it...

she started releasing "meaningful" shit like that song about the pigeons

Feeeeed the birds, tuppence a bag

i'm gonna rep for all through the night.

my favorite LP, some days.

All Through the Night: the best thing Jules Shear ever wrote?

"If She Knew What She Wants" is perfect too.

Hi songs are perfect only when women sing them.

xpost

dunno. he was kind of a "cult songwriter" in the 1980s i guess. are those polar bears albums any good?

i grew up in chicago and jules shear was the kid of "this is real, well-written pop" dude that WXRT was championing... which honestly put me off, since a lot of other stuff they were similarly championing was terminally bland.

I actually don't know ANY of his own recordings.

coda (?) beginning at 3:30 makes this fucking song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwkUY7LebDY

a tear just came to my eye, no shit.

yeah it's beautiful

are those polar bears albums any good?

Not really? Except they're kind of fun to hear. It's hard to explain.

I spent way too much time thinking about this. One of the most underrated albums. Guess I'll go "Time After Time" but this album has the best sustained group of covers of all time (great non-obvious selections and incredible versions).

is it really underrated? It's often listed as one of the decade's best.

I had to go with All Through The Night. It makes me so weepy and happy and her singing at the end is so pretty

<i>is it really underrated? It's often listed as one of the decade's best.</i>

Not often enough! I mean it's not underrated on here, sure, I think it even made Rolling Stones Top 500 albums of all time list (too low though), but it seems like most of hte time I hear reference to Cyndi Lauper she's basically just a punchline.

i think 'girls just wanna...' has sort of eclipsed the rest, tho it's probably only like the 4th or 5th best track.

But it's so much better than the original. Whoever thought the right way to do that song was late 70's male rock grumbling was pretty insane.

It's a testament to how awesome Lauper's performance is that not once have I ever tired of "Girls..."

in greil marcus's review of this album he talks about how annoyed everyone he knows is by 'girls.' i can't even imagine being the kind of person who finds cyndi lauper's voice annoying.

grouchy ppl

Robert Hazard is a multimillionaire, I trust.

http://itsnotpossible.typepad.com/trashfan/cyndi2.jpg

In the 1980s albums poll we did several years back -- that we never saw the results of? -- I think this was my number 5 or 6 album. I love so many of the songs that voting for one feels arbitrary, but the build from verse to chorus on "All Through the Night" is the thing I'd most like to hear at the moment.

She is just so absolutely enchanting in Vibes, I wanna marry her. Watching it right now.

I didn't know The Bangles sang the backing vocals on "Change of Heart"!

wait I didn't know that either!

Makes sense.

Judging them from their work here and Tom Petty's "Waiting For Tonight," I'm wondering why they couldn't become a Trio for L.A. post-punkers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_of_Heart_%28Cyndi_Lauper_song%29

lots of high-profile cameos (is that the word?) on that album. Billy Joel!

Nile Rogers on guitar too

"Money Changes Everything" over "Time After Time"

the "wywm" cover doesn't do anything for me, but it's the only case where i actually like the track she's covering. and i honestly can't recall "all through the night" but with everyone raving about it i want to make sure "money" gets a vote cuz its outstanding.

considering her ability to rescue sounds from bellowing new wavers i wish she'd make an album of graham parker covers

rescuing songs, i meant to say

yeah haha she was pretty good at dismissing the sounds of New Wavers and coming up with her own.

my relationship with this album has mostly been knowing the hits, throwing it on when house-sitting for someone who owns it, and then just going back to the hits

admittedly with those hits being so totemic and so front-loaded on the album, it's not the best way to get into the deep cuts.

finally voted for "She Bop," which hasn't been mentioned much – my introduction as a child to how much fun garish synths could be (didn't know it was about jerking off until years later; blame Capt Lou).

Songs my mom heard me singing around the house and told me in no uncertain terms to stop (she usually let me sing anything I wanted, so her telling me to stop was a big thing):
"Like a Virgin"
"Sexual Healing"

"She Bop" was no problem. I didn't know what it was about either; thought it was about bopping.

girls just having fun!

when i was a little kid i didn't like "girls just wanna have fun" because it implied girls were irresponsible and i was raised to believe boys and girls were equal