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

okay so this has nothing to do with anything but it's an awesome bit of miscellany

Her 'We Are the World' recording session!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=HpReqNFVL-0

That Howard Stern "All Through the Night" video gave me the idea for a "songs where the main melody was originally conceived as a harmony part" thread. But I doubt there are enough to merit a thread. (Only 1999 comes to mind.)

she's def the highlight of 'we are the world' for me, along with ray charles.

She won that poll, rigiht?

Huey Lewis comes off as a mega dbag of course

I love how MJ nails his part and is just off chillin

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.

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.

Wow it's like we're the same person. Cyndi was my first real pop idol (I loved Boy George and Michael Jackson before like all the other kids but she was a revelation.) First album I bought, first concert I went to (with the mostly unknown Bangles opening). I wanted to dress up like her for Halloween too but didn't have the balls to do drag at 10 so I went as a "punk" instead.

Loved the Goonies track too, but was really disapointed with the True Colors album. Then I discovered The Cure and the "alternative" scene as it was called around here and became a teenager. She kind of disapeared after that movie she did flopped and "I Drove All Night" which was only OK.

Seemed like she would rule the world for a while there, kind of like Lady Gaga did 2 years or so ago. I wonder if she'll fade away as quickly and quietly as Cyndi did.

Apart from the three big singles, my favorites when I got the album were "When You Were Mine" and "I'll Kiss You", so it's a close call between those two. Always thought WYWM would've made a better single than "Money", but I'm voting "I'll Kiss You" for being the first album track I really loved.

When I learned that our departmental classrooms had VCRs in them, the first movie I brought to work to watch over lunch was Vibes. Then I got the Second Voyage of the Mimi via inter-library loan and watched that. At the time, neither of them were on Youtube.

And the Goonies theme was always my favorite.

"A Hole in My Heart(All The Way to China)"!!

in that "We Are The World" I love how everyone's delighted by Lauper ("Oh it's me janglin'?!"), Lewis is the pro trying to harmonize and keep his hair straight at the same time, while everyone ignores Kim Carnes.

I couldn't find the exact right picture, but this one is from the same general time period. Imagine this little person with spray painted orange hair, no pants, and a really ugly sweater and you have my Cyndi Lauper costume, aka crazy clothes
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5198/7380419854_7bc96f0ef7_c.jpg

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

xpost Awesome.

AWWWWWW

Awesome!

I still watch Vibes whenever it's on tv :) Apparently Goldblum was kind of a dick to her on the movie, and that Akroyd originally read for that part & bailed bc he didn't like Cyndi!

I tend to associate "Change of Heart" with "Open Your Heart."

three trains in the night, them.

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.