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

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

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!

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