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| From | Stewart Mason <flamingo@theworld.com> |
| Subject | Re: Around the World |
| Date | Mon, 17 May 2004 18:43:08 -0400 |
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At 05:13 PM 5/17/2004 -0500, Miles Goosens wrote:
>At 05:28 PM 5/17/2004 -0400, Stewart Mason wrote:
>>However, how soon we forget: Cyndi Lauper, people! Every bit as up in the
>>nation's collective grill as Prince, Michael, Bruce and Madonna.
>
>Not *quite* that wedged into the grill, IMO -- not at the
>10-million-selling, football-stadium-packing level of those
>other four acts, and her popularity faded faster.
I don't have sales figures handy, but SHE'S SO UNUSUAL -- a fine and often
underappreciated album -- did sell like Pabst Blue Ribbon in a bar full of
hipster dipshits: a quick search claims sales between five and eight
million copies, even the lesser of which is nothing to sneer at. Moreover,
it had four Top Ten singles and a fifth (a version of the Brains' "Money
Changes Everything" that -- purists get ready to scoff -- kicks the
original's ass) that went Top 20 close to a year and a half after the album
first came out! (Can you tell that I just replaced the Joel Whitburn that
had somehow mysteriously wandered off from my office?) So actually, Cyndi
Lauper's debut album did better than Madonna's, and let's not forget that
Cyndi Lauper is also pretty much singlehandedly credited with starting the
image rehab of professional wrestling, thanks to her relationship with
Captain Lou Albano. She certainly did more for his career than NRBQ (who
he actually, believe it or not, *managed* for a peoriod in the early '80s)
ever did, anyway. I'm not saying that this latter thing is anything she
should be proud of, naturally, just holding it up as an example of how
pervasive her influence was. A look through my 9th-grade yearbook would
undoubtedly provie many others.
I stand by my unashamed love of Madonna's work through LIKE A PRAYER, but I
think Cyndi's first album -- and even the best parts of her spottier later
work, like the highly underrated HAT FULL OF STARS -- is every bit its
equal. Besides, the video for "I Drove All Night" is sexier than Madonna's
entire career, with the obvious exception of the almighty "Lucky Star" video.
S
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