Cyndi Lauper

Home‎ > ‎The Pantheon‎ > ‎Somewhat Appreciated Items‎ > ‎

CYNDI LAUPER

Cyndi Lauper (born June 22, 1953) is an American singer, songwriter, actress and LGBT activist. Her career has spanned over 30 years. Her debut solo album She’s So Unusual (1983) was the first debut female album to chart four top-5 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, “Time After Time”, “She Bop”, and “All Through the Night” — and earned Lauper the Best New Artist award at the 27th Grammy Awards in 1985. Her success continued with the soundtrack for the motion picture The Goonies and her second record True Colors (1986). This album included the number one hit of the same name and “Change of Heart” which peaked at number 3. (More from Wikipedia)

The concert event The Wall – Live in Berlin, a July 1990 performance of the 1980 Pink Floyd album The Wall took place at the site of the Berlin Wall that had come down eight months previously. The concert was organized by Roger Waters, who had been the frontman for the band during their hitmaking period in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, though he left Pink Floyd in 1985 over creative differences and attempted to prevent the other bandmembers from continuing to use the name (they settled out of court in 1987).

Roger Waters had said during an interview in July 1989 that the only way he would perform The Wall live again was “if the Berlin Wall came down” – and four months later, it did. Attendance at the concert site itself was a record-breaking 450,000, and it was also broadcast live worldwide. Scorpions opened the concert with “In the Flesh” and also performed on three other songs. Guest artists included Cyndi Lauper, Marianne Faithfull, Thomas Dolby, Sinéad O’Connor, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Bryan Adams, and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson of the Band. Tim Curry, Albert Finney, Ute Lemper and Jerry Hall are actors who also performed, mostly during “The Trial” sequence toward the end. As the concert was performed, a gigantic wall (550 feet long and 82 feet high) that appeared to be made of large styrofoam blocks was completed; at the end of the trial, the judge declared: “Tear down the Wall!”, and the wall was pushed over, row by row.

(April 2013)

* * *

According to Norman Petty, “That’ll Be the Day” by the Crickets was released in May 1957 to “humor” Bob Thiele. The song became a #1 hit that summer; and before long, the jig was up as Decca Records executives realized that Buddy Holly was their bandleader. However, as Cyndi Lauper observed in her 1984 hit song, “Money Changes Everything”, so Decca Records released Buddy Holly from his original contract restriction.

(June 2013/1)

* * *

At the studio, the Juvenaires were told that they would be singing back-up for John Madara; but as it turned out, his record company turned down the song “Do the Bop”.  Artie Singer took the song to Dick Clark, who suggested that they change the name to “At the Hop”, since “bop” was considered old-fashioned by then.  (Cyndi Lauper would later revive the term in a completely different context in her 1984 hit song “She Bop”). 

(August 2015)

*       *       *

The infamous Filthy Fifteen, along with the reasons for their inclusion on the list, follow.  Not only is Prince listed first on the list, he was also the songwriter for #2, “Sugar Walls”; and Vanity, at #4, is a one-time Prince protegé. 
 
       1.   Prince – “Darling Nikki”   (sex, masturbation) 
 
       2.   Sheena Easton – “Sugar Walls”   (sex) 
 
       3.   Judas Priest – “Eat Me Alive”   (sex) 
 
       4.   Vanity – “Strap on Robbie Baby”   (sex) 
 
       5.   Mötley Crüe – “Bastard”   (violence) 
 
       6.   AC/DC – “Let Me Put My Love Into You”   (sex) 
 
       7.   Twisted Sister – “We’re Not Gonna Take It”   (violence) 
 
       8.   Madonna – “Dress You Up”   (sex) 
 
       9.   W.A.S.P. – “Animal (F--k Like A Beast)”   (sex)  
     10.   Def Leppard – “High ’n Dry”   (drug and alcohol use) 
 
     11.   Mercyful Fate – “Into the Coven”   (occult) 
 
     12.   Black Sabbath – “Trashed”   (drug and alcohol use) 
 
     13.   Mary Jane Girls – “In My House”   (sex) 
 
     14.   Venom – “Possessed”   (occult) 
 
     15.   Cyndi Lauper – “She Bop”   (sex, masturbation)
 
*       *       *
 
The only song on the Filthy Fifteen that I think deserves special attention is Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop”; the song is on her major hit album, She’s So Unusual.  It really is a clever take on masturbation that got past a lot of people – in fact, the music video of the song that featured a judge and a tunnel and all the rest of it provided a lot of clues that the song didn’t.  
 
(June 2016)
 
*       *       *
 
Since I am down to a quarterly schedule rather than a monthly schedule, my annual list is a lot shorter, so I will try listing all of the people that I have discussed in some depth rather than just the Under Appreciated Rock Band and the Story of the Month.  They are all punk rock bands of one kind or another this year (2015-2016), and the most recent post includes my overview of the early rap/hip hop scene that an old friend, George Konstantinow challenged me to write – probably so long ago that he might have forgotten.  
 
June 2016 – 1980’s-1990’s gross-out/punk band THE GYNECOLOGISTS; Story of the Month on Dead Kennedys; also, Prince, Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), Tipper Gore, W.A.S.P., Twisted Sister / Dee Snider, Cyndi Lauper, the Beatles, “Louie Louie”, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts, Coven, Black Sabbath, Betty Blowtorch, Tommy Afterbirth. 
 
(Year 7 Review)