Cyndi Lauper
Irritating, unsexy and unable to pronounce her R's, Cyndi Lauper
was one of the biggest stars of the early MTV era, selling five
million copies of her debut album, She's So Unusual, as
well as scoring a string of four Top Ten Hits including major hits
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (possibly one of the songs
of the 80s) and Time After Time.
Lauper's thin, girlish voice and gleefully rag-tag appearance
became one of the most distinctive images of the early 80s.
Across
America, legions of teenage girls were dressing like Lauper and
using Girls Just Wanna Have Fun as their anthem.
At first her music was a bright, colourful fusion of new wave,
reggae and pop.
Both her image and her music helped popularise the
image of new wave in the USA, making it an acceptable part of the
pop landscape.
But Cyndi did not follow through on the success of She's
So Unusual, choosing instead to turn towards
middle-of-the-road balladry and mainstream pop. But her first
album remains a benchmark of the early 1980s.
Born in Queens, New York, in 1953 and raised in Brooklyn, Cyndi
Lauper dropped out of high school in her late teens and began
singing in a number of local cover bands.
In 1977 she began writing songs with keyboard player John
Turi.
They formed a duo called Blue Angel and gained a following in the
New York area, culminating in their 1980 eponymous debut album.
 By 1983, Cyndi was singing solo in clubs and restaurants and at
the end of the year she released her debut album after her
manager/boyfriend David Wolff managed to secure her a deal with
Portrait.
Helped by heavy support from
MTV for the first video from the
LP, the record became a major chart hit in 1984. Unfortunately she
was not able to maintain her popularity after the first album.
In 1985 she released The Goonies R Good Enough, the
theme to a children's adventure film.
In 1986 she released her
second album, True Colors, and while it was successful
(with the title track reaching Number One), the softer,
adult-contemporary sound lost Lauper her hard core legion of fans.
Her career continued to lose momentum as her feature film debut
in Vibes bombed.
Her third album, A Night To Remember
suffered disappointing sales (with the exception of the single
I Drove All Night). The next year she severed her
relationship with Wolff and married actor David Thornton.
After a few years off, Lauper returned in 1993 with Hat
Full Of Stars. The record stiffed at 112.
The following year, the hits compilation album 12 Deadly
Cyns And Then Some reached number 2 in Britain, while a
re-mixed Girls Just Wanna Have Fun also became a number
one hit in the UK.
Apart from the handful of 80's singles, Cyndi also briefly
made professional wrestling hip mid-decade by casting Captain Lou
Albano in her music videos and promoting WWF matches.
Cyndi eventually returned to the arenas - In 1999 she joined
Cher as the opening act on her Believe Tour - and divides
her time between music and her family; husband David Thornton (an
actor) and their son, Declyn.
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