Are you surprised to see this here? Well, I'm surprised at myself for having it, especially on CD. I could theoretically have had it on vinyl. I was 13 when it came out, you wouldn't hold it against me, would you? Truth be told, much as I have danced to these tunes at kids' parties at the time I wouldn't have bought such a girlie record back then. No, my first records were Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (a proper teen boy's record) and Music for Latin Jazz Lovers, something I'll bet no other 14-year old would ever have chosen except me and Manny from Modern Family - no pun on his Latin parentage, but can you imagine any other kid listening to Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie on the radio and rushing to the nearest record store to buy the record? I must have sensed it was weird and got Rainbow too, since older boys liked them and the album cover was absolutely awesome. Not that Cyndi's album cover isn't good, too - shot by Annie Leibovitz, no less! Love the colours, Lauper was nothing if not colourful. I've always like her goofy persona better than Madonna's (they surfaced around the same time and played the same style of music) and she had a bigger vocal range - though sometimes she could sound rather childish. Given her girlie image, I was surprised to learn (about an hour ago, actually) that not only she was the older of the two but she was actually 30 when she made her solo debut (she had already made an LP with new wave band Blue Angel). 30! that's seven years out of college and on her videos she prances about like a middle schooler who just got access to her mother's make-up box. As for the music, it's not all disco as I misremembered: Opener "Money Changes Everything" is a power pop anthem which curiously reminds me of Springsteen - she even sings with a throaty Boss-like voice at some point and adds some harmonica. The song itself is a cover from an unknown band called The Brains. "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" is, of course, the ultimate party anthem and "She Bop" is danceable new wave with fantastic synths (I especially love the spaghetti western section around the 2'30'' mark) and crazy vocal tricks (hiccuping, heavy breathing). Most of the rest is a cross between disco and new wave a la Cars/Talking Heads - the closing "Yeah Yeah" could easily have been a B52's song- but amongst it all lies a timeless classic: "Time After Time", one of the best ballads of the decade. You know you've written a great melody when a jazz legend like Miles Davis picks it up for his next record. Returning to the comparisons with Madonna, one may argue that Lauper had the bigger talent but lacked Madonna's commercial nous and work ethic. She kept recording, albeit with diminishing results, and has all but fallen off the radar. This album, though, never has and probably never will...
***** for Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Time After Time
**** for Money Changes Everything, She Bop
*** for When You Were Mine, Witness, I'll Kiss You, Yeah Yeah
** for All Through the Night, He's So Unusual
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