7 Days Of Bubbatunes - bub99
Well we made it - our 7th day of Bubbatunes as we countdown to Tuesday when we unleash our 100th Bubbatune - until then let's look at #99 shall we?
bub99 Cyndi Lauper - Cynsational
November 13, 2007
Another in our series of companion compilations, Cynsational is meant to go hand in hand with Cyndi’s greatest hits 12 Deadly Cyns…and Then Some. I love me some Cyndi and the beatch can sing just about anything, from silly 20’s Betty Boop impersonations to full on balladry, there really isn’t anything she can’t do, and I’ve been lucky enough to not only meet the woman (briefly) but to have seen her perform a couple of times and let me just say she doesn’t let you down – there is also the whole thing that she totally reminds me of my best pal Lisa and recently I met the faboo Angie Diamond, go go dancer extraordinaire who just happens to have more than a passing Cyndi Lauper look. Plus Cyndi is a human rights activist that doesn’t really take crap from anyone and I love that.
But we’re not here to talk about what a cool person Miss L is, but rather what a great singer and songwriter she is and that’s why we added a few little gems of some overlooked singles and some excellent album tracks from just about every release our girl has done.
Of course Cyndi’s claim to fame is 1983’s She’s So Unusual and her greatest hits really takes care of the singles including all four of the hit singles and our previous Bubbatunes re-releases (see bub84 and bub85) of the album includes the excellent b-side “Right Train Wrong Track” so for Cynsational we took a few of the album tracks that are somewhat overlooked including her excellent take on Prince’s “When You Were Mine” including the awesome decision not to change the lyrics so her plead to her ex, “I know you’re going with another guy…” packs a bit of a punch. “Yeah Yeah” is downright super cool with Cyndi’s little girl voice answering back everything she and her Hooters boys are singing including such random lines as “sushi/I love sushi”, and when her and boy back up singers sing “I’ll ask you once/ I’ll ask you again” and the little voice behind says, “Oh ask me, ask me!” I fall head over heels in love again. “Yeah Yeah” is one of her best cuts ever and just listening to those background vocals make me miss my gal Lisa.
Of course our opening song was originally put together with “Yeah Yeah” but I separated out the static clingy old 45 sound of “He’s So Unusual” to bring us into Cynsational. The song is short and sweet and the perfect opener to our album.
Her follow up to the highly successful debut solo album was 1987’s equally brilliant True Colors, which took her new waviness and threw on some powerful ballads and excellent lyrics. Her ode to a friend who died of AIDS – “Boy Blue” was a fairly successful single reaching the 70’s on the charts but the importance of the song is in her lyrics and her performance – “You never knew yourself well enough/ but she never knew you at all/ and when she put you out on the street/ she may have taken your innocence but not/ no, not your soul…” It’s so sad and so powerful and really something that speaks to people even 20 years later – which is actually pretty unfortunate.
Also included in our compilation from the True Colors albums is my all time favorite on the album “Calm Inside The Storm.” A rocking little song about discontent and our girl’s attempts to make things right – “I can get up on the ride side of the bed/ but that don’t stop the rain from coming down on my head/ I can live my life/ playing hide and seek/ but when I look inside/ it’s hard to make believe..” The chorus kicks in a bit later and it’s so sing songy I can’t help but belt it out with the Cyn – “you never really want anything/ but what you need is everything/ I’ll give you something only life can bring/ the calm inside the storm/ love me a little/ love me long…”
Prior to her reign supreme as Miss Unusual, our girl was in the band Blue Angel and they released one awesome little album that I happened to track down at Amoeba Records for only about $12. On the album she does the first version of “Maybe He’ll Know” a clever bouncy little track recollecting the glory days of 60’s Motown music that she redid on 1986’s True Colors album – which is the version we include here because Billy Joel’s bopping bee boy back vocals make it even better than the original.
But don’t worry, we didn’t forget that excellent band debut for the Blue Angel album is represented by one extremely catchy song – “Just The Other Day” – a rockabilly/ reggaeish mixture of fun. “Just the other day/ I heard you walked out on her…” and the kicky chorus – “did she let you go/ huh huh?” – it’s kind of sarcastic and a ton of fun.
There were a few one off singles that Cyndi’s US version of 12 Deadly Cyns horribly overlooked including her 1985 top ten “Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough” which may sound a little silly on the surface but is actually a very deep, not to mention catchy as hell single. In 1988 Cyndi made a cinematic turn as a hilarious somewhat psychic in Vibes with the often overlooked Jeff Goodblum and though only people with my somewhat cheeky mentality would find it a classic film, no one could doubt how good the single “Hole In My Heart” is as a single – too bad it didn’t do better chart wise but everyone I know loves the song so that says something.
On top of catchy fun and fast singles Cyndi can belt out a ballad like a regular pop diva and included here is the overlooked UK only single “The World Is Stone” which has some of her more serious and heartfelt belting.
1989’s A Night To Remember album was panned by critics and her fans alike and to be perfectly honest it isn’t exactly as great as her previous albums but there were a few moments of greatness – nowhere more so than the single “I Drove All Night” (found on 12 Deadly Cyns) but for Cynsational we included the sassy and fun, “Like A Cat” – “when you threw me out the window/ I landed on my feet/ yeah you threw me out the window/ like a, like a cat/ oh mister you could never own me/ I only let you hold me / like a cat/ and mister you could never know me/ I only let you stroke me/ like a cat…” For some reason it really speaks to me.
After taking a few years off to do Cyndi things, she came back in 1993 with what is my favorite Cyndi album of all times – Hat Full Of Stars. It charted in the low 100’s on the US album charts and did a tad better in the UK, but I don’t care what that would imply because every song on the album is great. For singles she put out “That’s What I Think” and “Sally’s Pigeons” which both ended up on 12 Deadly Cyns, but the best single and the first released wasn’t included on the compilation so we put it here, “Who Let In The Rain?” is a simple ballad but the vocals and the lyrics are so powerful, “things like this/ can always take a little time/ I always thought/ we’d be together down the line/ we start to fight and can’t get over what was said/…” and my favorite line, “cause you see black and white and I see red…” I love it, I love the song, I love Cyndi!
“Like I Used To” is another in the sassy pants category for our Miss Cyn – again from the 1993 brilliant album, this one is full of power little ‘take control’ lyrics. “I know you expected me to act just like a school girl/ followed your rules/ just like a fool/ wrapped up in your world/ what’s good for you/ doesn’t mean it’s so good for me/ what can I do but hang around/ and lose myself just like I used to/ go round and round like a loose screw?” but as it turns out Cyndi isn’t going to that no more – “Well I ain’t gonna walk with my heart in my hand/ and take things lying down like before/ won’t take your crap like I used to/ ain’t gonna be the way it used to/ alright for you ain’t alright for me…”
Hat Full Of Stars is so shock full of great songs I couldn’t keep from adding more and more tracks and we finally had our fill of songs but I was able to squeeze one more great little track onto Cynsational – the poppy rock confection of “Someone Like Me” with the so simple yet so powerful lines of “what’s someone like me/ doing in a life like this?” How many times I’ve asked myself the exact question. The second verse actually makes the whole song – “sun comes up and streams through the blinds/ and as I throw my clothes on/ do my hair wrong/ stare into the mirror/ telling myself that everyone falls/ take the first step/ that’s the trick of it all/ bounce back like a ball/ what’s someone like me/ doing in a life like this…”
One of Cyndi’s greatest achievements is her personal favorite album 1997’s Sisters Of Avalon, which combines all kinds of nuances into the music including violins, dance beats, and I think even the kitchen sink in a few instances. Again, her lyrics are more and more intense as she tackles everything from women’s rights, politics and even one supremely fabulous transgender boy in “Ballad Of Cleo + Joe” which is one of her greatest little gems ever released – “every day the clock kicks off the beat/ little Joe struggles just to get up on his feet/ waits on the platform for the right train to come/ sipping his coffee another day has begun…” in between the first and second verses, Little Joe can be found working his body just to be somebody where ‘there’s a woman in the mirror looking like a dream/and he works his body/ just to be somebody/and the working boy becomes a dancing queen.”
The second verse almost repeats the first only with a bunch of new connotations – “every night the DJ kicks off the beat/ Little Cleo’s jumping just to get up on his feet/ waits in her platforms for the right song to come/ sipping his cocktail another night has begun…” The song got a ton of club play and it’s no surprise as to why.
The first single from Sisters Of Avalon is just as brilliant only in a whole different way. “You Don’t Know” is a sarcastic, slap in the face, bitter little ditty set to a downbeat and Cyndi’s vocals are great – “You don’t know where you belong/ you should be more careful/ as you follow blindly along/ to find something to swear to/ til you don’t know what’s right from wrong/ you just need to belong somehow…”
The verses are even more powerful as she sets up her tone of bitchiness – “Relying on rhetoric/ not well versed in topics/ any idea what you’re talking about?/ Revisions of history/ fair well in some company/ but don’t shove that bullshit down my throat…” That’s right she said bullshit and she means it. Cyndi takes on both sides of political hypocrisy in the song, as it totally rips on those hypocrites so likely to share their misinformed rhetoric. “Left suppresses right/ right suppresses left/ so what’s left?/ and what’s right?/ you’re told what to wear/ you’re told what to like/ be nice if you think for yourself sometime/ but you don’t…” “Mix sheer hypocrisy/ with mediocrity/ you play it safe every time / oh so life turns up empty/ and you’re so dissatisfied/ so who do you blame this time/ this time/ or don’t you know?” So great!
One of my all time little ballads by our girl is also from Sisters Of Avalon – the very simple and yet so powerful “Hot Gets A Little Cold” – “Heaven/ you say it could be Heaven/ but I don’t really know/ lovers come and go/ when hot gets a little cold” and my favorite lines, “I could get carried away/ but not anymore/ what was it I heard you say/ you love me cause I’m strong/ I hope you’re not wrong…”
When I first met Miss Cyn it was when she released her EP Shine in 2002, there she was signing and singing for us at the now defunct Tower Records on Sunset (sob! Sob!) and though the album was released in fullness in Japan, I haven’t had the chump change to actually pick it up though I do have a few signed copies of the US EP release. Though it only contained a handful of songs, it did contain two of her best – the rocking ode (or slap in the face) to Anna Nicole – “It’s Hard To Be Me” which is one of Cyndi’s more rock songs of late – “It’s hard to be me/ nobody knows what it’s like to be the envy of mediocrity/ if you could see all my depth and complexity/ I think you’d agree it’s hard to be me…” Apparently Anna wanted to use it for the theme to her show but our girl declined.
On the opposite side of the rocker is the ballad “Water’s Edge” – one of her best songs of recent years – a simple little melody and some very wonderful lyrics – “You say it’s the way of the world/ to somehow co-exist/ that eventually life unfurls a path to happiness/ so I whisper your little secret/ and repeat it under my breath/ I’ll save it for you in my heart/ in case we both forget…” and the powerful chorus, “Oh I wish you could wrap yourself around me/ I am gripped by a loneliness/ oh I wish you could wrap yourself around me/ I’d be released in your tenderness….”
The final album represented on our compilation is 2003’s At Last – a covers album of old 60s standards and pop songs that includes the best version of “Stay” I think I’ve ever heard. Instead of a straight up cover of the Motown classic, our girl added a Spanish flavor to it, why you ask? Well apparently when she was a teenager she and her girlfriend would listen to their stack of 45’s in the girl’s bedroom while in the other room the girl’s mother played her Spanish records, so this is exactly how “Stay” would sound mixed with the two records playing – ingenious, don’t you think.
We close Cynsational in the same way we opened it – the fuzzy old record sound of “He’s So Unusual” from 1983’s She’s So Unusual opens our door into the heart and soul of Diva Lauper while the fuzzy old record sound of “Kindred Spirit” from 1989’s A Night To Remember brings us out of her frenetic world of fun, spirit, love, hate and wonderment… long live la Lauper!
And if you really want your Lauper – head on over to her official website where they have started a petition to get Epic to remaster and re-release her first three albums with bonus cuts, the way we all really want them… http://www.cyndilauperonline.com/
Cyndi Lauper – Cynsational (bub99)
Track List:
01. He’s So Unusual 02. (There’s A) Hole In My Heart (All The Way To China) 03. It’s Hard To Be Me 04. The World Is Stone 05. Like A Cat 06. When You Were Mine 07. Water’s Edge 08. Just The Other Day 09. Boy Blue 10. You Don’t Know 11. Stay 12. Calm Inside The Storm 13. Someone Like Me 14. Ballad Of Cleo + Joe 15. Maybe He’ll Know 16. Who Let In The Rain 17. Yeah Yeah 18. Hot Gets A Little Cold 19. Like I Used To 20. Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough 21. Kindred Spirit
Labels: 7 Days Of Bubbatunes, bub99 Cyndi Lauper
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