She's So Unusual...and That's Why I Love Her

At the risk of sounding like a new generation of old-timer gushing about Glenn Miller, I really love Cyndi Lauper. I recently rekindled my love affair with her when I "rediscovered" my old VHS copy of Vibes and subsequently bought myself her 3-CD import The Great Cyndi Lauper: Greatest Hits and music video compilation DVD, over at Half.com. I chose the import in lieu of her American-released greatest hits collection (Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some), because it had some of my favorites that aren't available anywhere else: Hole in My Heart (All the Way to China) (from the 80's movie Vibes) and Goonies 'R' Good Enough (naturally, from the movie The Goonies), just to name a few.

I love Cyndi because I think she has a GREAT voice and, of course, I love her style and imagination. How could I not? She introduced me to kitsch before I even knew what it was! Her albums She's So Unusual (one of my first cassette tapes ordered from Columbia House in the mid 80's) and True Colors are among my favorites, though her last CD At Last, where she does covers of great American standards such as If You Go Away, My Baby Just Cares For Me and Makin' Whoopee, is really great too. A great CD for lovers of Lounge. Aside from the music/voice/lyrics, I love the cover of her True Colors CD. An homage to a well-known scene from the film Orphée (Orpheus) by Jean Cocteau, she joins the ranks of The Smiths (whose covers I've always loved as well) who also made use of the image on the cover of their single This Charming Man.


Okay, okay, the gushing is over now. So, here's my collage of some of my favorite photos of Cyndi. She's done some really great ones over the years. Very classic. Always distinctive.