Cyndi Lauper
Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper (/ˈlɔːpər/; born June 22, 1953) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and activist.[2] Her career has spanned over 40 years.[3] Her album She's So Unusual (1983) was the first debut album by a female artist to achieve four top-five 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 Annual Grammy Awards in 1985. Her success continued with the soundtrack for the motion picture The Goonies (1985) and her second record True Colors (1986). This album included the number-one single "True Colors" and "Change of Heart", which peaked at number three. In 1989, Lauper saw success with "I Drove All Night" and in 1993, had her first dance club hit with "That's What I Think".
Cyndi Lauper
- Singer
- songwriter
- actress
- activist
1977–present
1
- Vocals
- dulcimer
Since 1983, Lauper has released eleven studio albums and participated in many other projects. In 2010, Memphis Blues became Billboard's most successful blues album of the year, remaining at number one on the Billboard Blues Albums chart for 13 consecutive weeks. In 2013, she won the Tony Award for best original score for composing the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, making her the first woman to win the category by herself.[4] The musical was awarded five other Tonys including Tony Award for Best New Musical. In 2014, Lauper was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album for the cast recording. In 2016, the West End production won Best New Musical at the Olivier Awards.[5]
Lauper has sold over 50 million records worldwide.[6] She has won awards at the Grammys, Emmys, Tonys, the New York's Outer Critics Circle, MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), Billboard Awards, and American Music Awards (AMAs).[7] An inductee into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Lauper is one of the few singers to win three of the four major American entertainment awards (EGOT).[8] She won the inaugural Best Female Video prize at the 1984 VMAs for "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". This music video is recognized by MTV, VH1 and Rolling Stone as one of the greatest music videos of the era.[9][10][11][12] She is featured in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Women Who Rock exhibit.[13] Her debut album is included in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,[14] while "Time After Time" is included in VH1's list of the 100 Best Songs of the Past 25 years.[15] VH1 has ranked Lauper No. 58 of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll.[16]
Lauper is known for her distinctive image, featuring a variety of hair colors and eccentric clothing,[17] and for her powerful and distinctive four-octave singing range.[18] She has been celebrated for her humanitarian work, particularly as an advocate for LGBT rights in the United States. Her charitable efforts were acknowledged in 2013 when she was invited as a special guest to attend U.S. President Barack Obama's second inauguration.[19]
Life and career[edit]
1953–1979: early life[edit]
Lauper was born in Brooklyn, New York City,[20] to a Catholic family. Her father, Fred, was of Swiss-German descent, and a direct descendant of Christen Lauper, a leader of the Swiss peasant war of 1653.[21][22] Her mother, Catrine (née Gallo; 1930–2022),[23] was of Italian descent (from Sicily). Lauper's siblings are her younger brother Fred (nicknamed Butch), and older sister Ellen.[24] Lauper's parents divorced when she was five.[3] Her mother remarried and divorced again.[25]
Lauper grew up in the Ozone Park[26] neighborhood of Queens and, as a child, listened to such artists as The Beatles and Judy Garland. At age 12, she began writing songs and playing an acoustic guitar given to her by her sister.[27][28]
Lauper expressed herself with a variety of hair colors and eccentric clothing,[17] and took a friend's advice to spell her name as "Cyndi" rather than "Cindy". Her unconventional sense of style led to classmates bullying and throwing stones at her.[26]
Lauper went to Richmond Hill High School, but was expelled[29] although she later earned her GED.[30][31] She left home at 17, to escape her abusive stepfather,[26] intending to study art. Her journey took her to Canada, where she spent two weeks in the woods with her dog Sparkle, trying to find herself.[32] She eventually traveled to Vermont, where she took art classes at Johnson State College and supported herself working odd jobs.[33][34][35] In 2019, Lauper gave the commencement address at Northern Vermont University – Johnson, the academic institution that now includes Johnson State. At this event, NVU awarded her the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.[35]
In the early 1970s, Lauper performed as a vocalist with various cover bands. One, called Doc West, covered disco songs as well as Janis Joplin. A later band, Flyer, was active in the New York metropolitan area, singing hits by bands including Bad Company, Jefferson Airplane and Led Zeppelin. Although Lauper was performing on stage, she was not happy singing covers.[36] In 1977, Lauper damaged her vocal cords and took a year off from singing. She was told by doctors that she would never sing again, but regained her voice with the help of vocal coach Katie Agresta.[37]
Legacy[edit]
Lauper was described by AllMusic's Lindsay Planer as "an iconoclastic vocalist who revolutionized the role of women in rock and roll".[151] Over her 40-year career, she influenced multiple recording artists including Katy Perry,[152] Lady Gaga,[153] Vanessa Paradis,[154] Tegan and Sara,[155] Kim Petras,[156] Nicki Minaj,[157] Poppy[158] and Yelle.[159] Due to her success and influence Lauper has been inducted into both the Hollywood and Songwriters Hall of Fame.[160]
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Spotify said She's So Unusual and Lauper's distinctive idiosyncratic appearance "helped popularize the image of punk and new wave for America, making it an acceptable part of the pop landscape".[154] Rolling Stone magazine stated that her debut was "arguably the first time explicitly punk-influenced elements were front-and-center on the pop landscape, both musically and via Lauper's Patrick Lucas-styled ensembles, dressing up the droll Reagan decade in feminist chutzpah".[161] The album ranked at No. 487 on Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003. The album ranked at No. 41 on Rolling Stone's list of Women Who Rock: The 50 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2012.[162] Rolling Stone's review stated, "A wild and wonderful skyrocket of a voice ... Lauper's extraordinary pipes connect with the right material, the results sound like the beginning of a whole new golden age." Thirty years after its release, Entertainment Weekly called it an "everlastingly saucy supersmash".[163]
Sheila Moeschen argued that "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" "embodied a different kind of feminine aesthetic that ran counter to the raw sensuality and edginess of her contemporaries like Madonna or veteran rockers Joan Jett and Pat Benatar", that introduced "a nation of women to a new kind of female role model, one that celebrated difference and encouraged playfulness in self-expression".[164] John Rockwell wrote that the song was "a giddily upbeat attestation to female pleasure that simultaneously made a feminist statement, fulfilled male fantasies and—especially in its often-played video version—evoked the warmth of family and friends".[165] Its music video won the first-ever Best Female Video prize at the 1984 VMAs. It featured a multicultural cast of women with teased, sideways hair and neon eye shadow, singing alongside Lauper.[10]
"Time After Time" has been covered by over a hundred artists and was ranked at No. 22 on Rolling Stone's 100 Best Songs of the Past 25 Years[166] and at No. 19 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 80s.[167]
"She Bop", the third single from She's So Unusual, is the first and only top ten song to directly mention a gay porn magazine. An ode to masturbation, it was included in the PMRC's "Filthy Fifteen" list that led to the Parental Advisory sticker appearing on recordings thought to be unsuitable for young listeners.[168] In a retrospective, Rolling Stone ranked it the 36th best song of 1984, praising its unusual playfulness regarding sexuality.[169]
"True Colors" is a gay anthem, after which True Colors United, which advocates for runaway and homeless LGBT youth, is named.[170]
In 1990, Scottish group Aztec Camera covered "True Colors" on the b-side of their single "The Crying Scene"