Cyndi Lauper – She’s So Unusual (1983/Super Audio Compact Disc/SACD/SA-CD Edition)
Sound: B+ Music: B+
After a
stint with a band called Blue Angel, singer Cyndi Lauper decided to go solo and
backed by the two lead members of the brief-lived The Hooters, Eric Bazilian
and Rob Hyman, made an album that far exceeded anything that group would ever
make and mark the arrival of the great over-accessorized New Wave pop icon in
an album that remains one of the greatest triumphs of the 1980s or any other decade:
She’s So Unusual.
The first
album by a female vocalist to place five singles in the Top 30, a record
surprisingly forgotten these days, the hits began late in 1983 with a
remarkable remake of a sexist punk song whose title was quite self-explanatory.
However, in the hands of Lauper’s
handlers and with her brilliant vocal performance, Girls Just Want To Have Fun became a feminist classic and
self-expressive triumph of a mega hit that remains her signature song so much
that she remade it again to extend its meaning as a statement against
homophobia.
In its
original form, made even more pronounced by the all-time classic Music Video
(directed by Edd Griles, sold on a separate DVD noted below) that helped put
MTV on the map, it announced a bright new star pushing the boundaries within
the system of what pop music could achieve with if the best combination of
risks, material, heart and soul were fused together and Lauper’s New Wave edge
was edgier because it never betrayed its Punk roots. Her voice is amazing and you can heart the
empathy delivered like nowhere else in this SACD version.
But that
was just one track. Never released as a
single is Lauper’s interesting cover of Prince’s When You Were Mine, which remains a popular track for fans of both
artists, but the hits just kept on coming.
Time After Time was a safer
song, but done so well that it topped the charts, remaining one of the biggest
hits of her career. She Bop, about female sexuality co-written by Lauper, could have
been a Prince song except only a woman could have delivered it and Lauper does
in one of the oddest tracks of the album.
It was also a huge hit and many did not even know what it meant at the
time.
All Through The Night was the fourth Top Ten and was so
beautiful, it achieved this charting without a Music Video at all, remaining
one of the strongest tracks she has ever cut.
Money Changes Everything was a
fun hit that did not chart as well as the previous singles, in part since it
was a comparatively tougher vocal on Lauper’s part, but seems far from it in
this Hip Hop era. Song after song, the
ten tracks here are just amazing as they are enduring, making it a perfect
choice for SACD.
Though
the master can show some of its age at times, the fidelity holds up remarkably
well in what (sit down for this) is an album that celebrates its 25th
anniversary in 2008. But a classic is a
classic and at a time when the music industry still had its act together, this
is the kind of great mainstream music we used to get all the time. It remains Lauper’s biggest album, though she
had more success before running into rough commercial waters, but it set her
for life as a formidable artist and continues to stay in print constantly. This is the highest performance version on
the market and a must if you have a Super Audio CD player. PlayStation 3 fans can actually play these
discs, if not to full audiophile level.
Fortunately, many SACD players are out there at decent prices, also able
to play regular CDs and even DVDs. If
you love music, look into it. If you can
play SACD, this is a must have disc.
The DSD
(Direct Stream Digital) 2.0 Stereo mix is the only one here and despite some
minor limitations form the original recording, shows what a remarkable
recording this was for its time and how easy it is to underrate a great singer
like Lauper because of her style. At a
time we have a great singer like Gwen Stefani exposing how bad the bland “pop
tart” singers of our time are, it is hard to imagine how “unusual” Lauper’s
vocal style was, in a time when New Wave seemed so different.
It also
becomes an interesting demo to see how good your system is at playback, because
the recording is so distinct. Rick
Chertoff produced, though sadly, the fold-out-into-a-poster liner notes/lyrics
seem to be from the old CBS CD with no SACD notes, so except for Stephen Saper
credited as DSD Authoring Engineer, we know nothing from the packaging. He certainly did a good job.
Now SACD
fans know that early titles were issued by Sony in two-channel only as the format
did not yet offer 5.1 or even a standard PCM CD layer, two choices that we
think stopped the format from beating DVD-Audio, prevented it from succeeding
CDs and from being a hot item in play as MP3s arrived. Unlike albums from Carole King and Billy Joel
made earlier than this one, She’s So
Unusual was not reissued in 5.1, though the DVD-Video of Twelve Deadly Cyns... has Dolby Digital
5.1mixes of three of the hits from this album.
Though not true multi-channel music, they are not just ambience spreading
either and better than the flat PCM 2.0 16/48 Stereo tracks likely from the old
Japanese LaserDisc.
The
original master of the album just might not be able to work 5.1 on an
audiophile level. The DSD 2-channel here
is warmer, richer and more detailed than either selection on the DVD or any of
the CD versions of this classic. She’s So Unusual is a classic, is the
reason Lauper beat Madonna for the Best New Artist Grammy before Madonna
overtook her as Lauper got sidetracked with the film bomb Vibes, wrestling and her later hit True Colors being hijacked for a TV ad. But for one bright shining moment, just
before Tina Turner’s Private Dancer
and as Pat Benatar lost her way, Lauper was the most important female vocalist
in the industry and She’s So Unusual
is as much a triumph today as it ever was.
On SACD, it is a must-own.
For more
Lauper music, try this coverage of her covers album At Last:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/711/Cyndi+Lauper+-+At+Last+(CD)
- Nicholas Sheffo
