Cyndi's touring again right now, too.  We might go see her.  I always
enjoyed her especially when my son was growing up because he liked her, too.

Judy
www.superoldies.com
www.topshelfoldies.com
for the best in obscure '50s and '60s music


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stewart Mason" <flamingo@theworld.com>
To: <audities@smoe.org>; <audities@smoe.org>
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 3:43 PM
Subject: Re: Around the World


> 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
>
>
>
>
>