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She’s so unusual. Again.
No joke: Cyndi Lauper has put together a bona fide comeback more worthy of success than anything on the charts.

Lauper’s debut – 1983’s “She’s So Unusual” – was one of rock history’s most monumental achievements by a new artist, producing four Top 5 singles and selling some 9 million copies. 1986’s “True Colors” was the inevitable sophomore slump, but not the end of the world.

Yet Lauper developed an unhealthy affinity for professional wrestling and made flop movies as Madonna vamped all over the place. By 1989’s “A Night To Remember,” Lauper was practically forgotten (despite the powerful single “I Drove All Night”). “Hat Full of Stars” was dead on arrival in 1993, and the 1995 hit collection “Twelve Deadly Cyns . . . And Then Some” was merely a footnote. Acclaimed guest appearances on the TV show “Mad About You” are all that have saved Lauper from absolute oblivion.

So here she is in a decade-long downward spiral, releasing an album much better than it has any right to be.

Singing in a more mature, lower register, Lauper is still lovably quirky on “Sisters of Avalon.” And the old girl has worked hard on every track, co-writing dynamite material with Jan Pulsford and crafting an ambitiously complex sound.

There are drum machines, violins, accordions, mandolins, wah wah guitar, and Lauper herself plays dulcimer and zither, among other things.

OK, so the title track only manages a low-grade fever with its sisterhood anthem, and “You Don’t Know” cloys with its righteous stand against conformity.

Otherwise, there isn’t much to complain about.

Lauper’s earnest portrayal of a working-class transvestite (“Ballad of Cleo and Joe”) is an adventure in world music set to a propulsive beat, and “Love To Hate” is the grittiest rock song she’s recorded since “Money Changes Everything” (“It’s not the clothes that you wear/Or the way you do your hair/It’s just you”). Also, Lauper complements the soft jazz of “Say a Prayer” with a mellow rap.

Although the singer has more on her mind than relationships, her introspective moments are sterling.

Singing in a gravely voice, Lauper shuffles through the sad waltz of “Unhook the Stars” with touching grace. And her moving battle with insecurities turns “Fearless” into a heartbreaker.

No wonder she’s giving a lover a wait-and-see attitude on the bittersweet “Hot Gets a Little Cold” while yearning for an end to loneliness on “Searching,” a marriage of adult contemporary music to exoticism.

Then there’s the springy surprise ending, “Brimstone and Fire,” where Lauper lightheartedly grapples with a budding lesbian relationship (“Is this a sign? From above or below?”).

Lauper deserves a chance. After all, Madonna’s home with that baby, and Toni Braxton and Celine Dion have sapped the life out of radio for long enough.

Rating (five possible): XXXX 1/2

Just over 13 years ago, two wildly-dressed New York-based women made their top of the pops debut on the same show. Madonna thrust her midriff into the camera and warbled ‘Holiday’, quickly followed by Cyndi Lauper cavorting around the studio declaring, ‘Girls just wanna have fun’.

And where are they now ? Madonna is an icon and award winning actress, probably the most famous female entertainer in the world. Cyndi, on the other hand, is an intermittent hitmaker at best, still plugging her wares on Saturday morning skits with Trev and Simon.

Cyndi’s big problem has always been consistency. Whereas Madonna has seemingly always had her finger on the worlds pop pulse, Cyndi tends to throw too much into the mix. For ever glorious moment like ‘Time after Time’ or ‘I drove all night’ there’s been a corresponding unlistenable aberration like ‘The world is stone’ or her horrific cover of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s going on’.

‘Sisters of Avalon’ is yet another eclectic Lauper lucky bag, where the tired gospel of the title track rubs shoulders with the cool folk of ‘Hot gets a little cold’, where the Garbage-esque ‘Love to hate’ slinks alongside the power balladry of ‘Say a prayer’. Such variety may be laudable, but the album suffers from an identity crisis, as if Cyndi’s just strung together scizophrenic leftovers from a few years worth of sessions.

She’s undoubtedly a better singer than Madonna, frequently a more inspired songwriter, and she could have been an even better pop star. Instead, she’s settled for being half a dozen average ones.

Score: 6 out of 10

NO PREGNANT PAUSES:
In 1983,when she burst on the pop scene in Day-Glo hair, declaring that “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” Cyndi Lauper instantly became a liberating voice for her sorority fans. Now, 44 and pregnant with her first child (due in November), Lauper is once again showing her true colors as a stalwart preformer. In April she released her fifth studio album, Sisters Of Avalon (Epic).

And on Aug.2 she finished a vigorous three-month stint as Tina Turner’s opening act-despite morning sickness and an ever-expanding waistline. “Being pregnant is like an ongoing science project,” muses Lauper, who has been married since 1991 to David Thornton, a TV and film actor. “Your body’s always changing, and you think,’Okay what’s in store today ?’ ”

WHAT’S THE WORST PART ABOUT BEING PREGNANT ?
People touching my stomach for good luck all the time.I want to say: “Excuse me. Do I look like the Happy Buddah ? This is not Aladdin’s lamp, and a genie is NOT going to pop out of here.” At least not now, anyway.

DID YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS ABOUT PERFORMING IN YOUR CONDITION ?
I asked, and my doctor said it would actually be even more stressful for me not to do what I normally do. Lying down all day and doing nothing — THAT would kill me.

DO YOU WEAR MATERNITY CLOTHES ?
I don’t wear them ever.I have things made to shape my body. I went to a stripper place in LA called Trashy Lingerie for a couple of things. But I’m not interested in maternity clothes until they start making clothes women can feel pretty in and not like they are wearing a potato sack.

HAVE YOU SELECTED A NAME YET ?
No. This kid’s going to be born and we’ll still be discussing names. You want something poetic and nice, maybe a famous artist’s name,not some weird hippie name.Name books are sort of cheesy.I’m still learning.

WOULD YOU WANT YOUR SON TO BE A MUSICIAN ?
Of course.That’s a real job. isn’t it ?

In 1984, a bohemian diva in orange hair and thrift shop clothes named Cyndi Lauper came out of nowhere and declared that “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Her big, yelping soprano proved so irresistible that the single became not just a No. 2 hit but an anthem for a younger generation of women who believed feminism should involve pleasures as well as sacrifices.

Two years later, an all-female Los Angeles quartet, the Bangles, joined the fun crusade with a pair of Top 5 hits, “Manic Monday” (“I wish it was Sunday ’cause that’s my fun day”) and “Walk Like an Egyptian.” For the rest of the decade, the two acts set up residence in the Top 10 with a steady diet of giddiness, adolescent longing and juicy pop melodies.

It’s a thin line between advocating fun and appearing frivolous, however, and by 1990 Lauper and the Bangles were on the wrong side of the border. A 1991 solo album by the Bangles’ most appealing singer, Susanna Hoffs, and a 1993 album by Lauper barely dented the public consciousness. Chastened, both waited years before releasing any new projects. Now the new albums are out. They’re neither triumphs nor disasters but find both women in transition.

Cyndi Lauper: `Sisters of Avalon’
Lauper has made the more radical changeover. Gone are the bubbly, squealing chorus hooks and the novelty-song lyrics that seemed so well suited to her high-pitched voice. In their place are songs written around rhythm patterns rather than melodies. In recent interviews, Lauper has praised house and bass-and-drums records, and she uses similarly stark and muscular beats as the basis for her new songs.

On top of these rhythm tracks she has placed moody, cabaret-tinged, lower-register vocals as if she had been reborn as Marianne Faithfull. It’s an unexpected but oddly appealing new direction, for Lauper reminds us that she’s a special singer, whether she’s belting out anthemic refrains as in the past or smudging impressionistic harmonies as she does here.

By deemphasizing melody, however, Lauper (who opens for Tina Turner at Nissan Pavilion June 21) puts more weight on the words of her songs, and that’s where “Sisters of Avalon” (Epic) runs into problems. Ten of the dozen songs were written by Lauper and one of her producers, Jan Pulsford, who are too willing to talk about “mystery,” “dreams” and “nightmares” without actually evoking them. Yet whenever Lauper tackles a story grounded in the details of reality — as in the disco tale of two working-class dancers, “Ballad of Cleo and Joe,” and in the bouncy narrative about a lesbian romance, “Brimstone and Fire” — her new musical approach works like a charm, for it combines the urgency of the beat and the subtleties of interpretive singing.

The show must go on for Cyndi Lauper. In more ways than one. The quirky singer-actor with the Technicolor hair, known for mid-80’s hits Girls Just Want To Have Fun, She Bop and True Colors, lately has been feeling as green as her frizzy locks.

At 45, Lauper is three months pregnant with her first child – and showing – and that bane of new motherhood, morning sickness, could not come at a more inopportune time. Lauper is in the middle of an important tour, opening for Tina Turner.

As with Madonna, who found she was pregnant while shooting her dream project Evita, Lauper has something to prove. Somehow, she needs to showcase her remarkable new album, Sisters of Avalon. Radio is not doing it.

Lauper badly needs the tour exposure: Her bold 1993 album Hat Full of Stars declared that she had left behind the perky fluff of Girls Just Want To Have Fun for a more thoughtful, substantive role in pop, but she has not had a Top-40 hit since 1989’s I Drove All Night.

Lauper is talking from a Denver hotel where she is registered under the name Holiday Sunshine. She likes being paged as Miss Sunshine, but these days, she feels like she ought to change it to Large Marge. Her performances have not suffered from her pregnancy, although she is not jumping around as much on stage.

In her 45 minute warm-up for Turner, she has time for a few old songs but is concentrating on Sisters of Avalon material. “This is perfect for me because I can’t do a two hour show”, Lauper says. “I can’t take the long bus rides, I have to take a B-6 so I don’t get sick, and I still get morning sickness”. This discomfort will pay off if the public discovers Sisters of Avalon.

“This kind of music needs to come through the back door”, Lauper says. “The people that would really like this record aren’t getting to hear it, so we have to move through different avenues”.

The record is a revelation. Lauper deftly mixes her trademark pop with blistering industrial rock, folk, Eastern textures, introspective ballads, electro-reggae and clubby music comprising tape loops (repetitive rhythm tracks) recorded on a vintage soundboard. It is leagues above the music coming from the crop of Alanis Morissette clones.

But Lauper has come up against industry executives who refuse to accept the idea that she has to grow beyond her ’80s image.

After all, this was an artist who titled her first album She’s So Unusual and became the toast of the industry for being precisely that. She won the 1984 “Best New Artist” Grammy on the strength of that album. Yet Hat Full of Stars and Sisters of Avalon are plenty unusual too. Why are people holding it against her now ?

“I had a lot of battles just trying to make the kind of music, stylistically, I wanted. I was defined as a singer, even though I’m a songwriter. It’s the loops – they didn’t understand the loops and they say it didn’t mix with R&B – but this isn’t R&B. It’s also frustrating because when you do it and everyone looks at you cross-eyed…” Lauper says, her voice trailing off. “… and then after Alanis Morissette started using tape loops – poor thing, I don’t mean to single her out – her success encouraged me, it validated what I was doing”.

“The song Sisters of Avalon is a real journey about what it feels to be a woman. What am I going to write about, being a man ?”

PEOPLE: Hi everyone. I’m Andrew Alden, this is PEOPLE Online on Pathfinder — and tonight’s guest is …(drum-roll)… singer Cyndi Lauper.

Tonight’s guest is singer Cyndi Lauper. From Blue Angel to Money Changes Everything; from She’s So Unusual to expectant motherhood, and her current tour with rock goddess Tina Turner, singer Cyndi Lauper has always been one of the true originals of the pop music scene. Never content with the bland cookie cutter sound of radio’s endless flavors of the month, Lauper’s new album, Sisters of Avalon heralds the return of a true diva with a style all her own.

Wanna ask Cyndi a question? Ichat users can submit questions to the question queue either by typing “/ask” on the command line or by clicking on that red question mark icon to the left of that ichat icon. IRC users can send their questions to user “Bentrumble” in the “people” area via a private send & he’ll submit ’em for you.

Welcome, Cyndi! I guess you’re an old hand online. I noticed you keep an online journal of your Avalon tour. Does it make you… NERVOUS to have something like that in so public a place?

Cyndi Lauper: Hi everyone. I DID keep my diary online for a while but I started compromising some of the truths, so I had to stop. It wasn’t worth it.

PEOPLE: So who are the Sisters of Avalon, and what do they represent? Is there some relation to the novel The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley? Or that old Brian Ferry tune “Avalon”?? Or Frankie Avalon???

Cyndi Lauper: The Sisters of Avalon are mythological or perhaps historical figures. Jan Pulsford–who co-wrote most of the songs on the album, helped produce it & plays a few instruments on it (acoustic piano, bass, harminium & a few others)–was reading a book about Merlin, and in it they mentioned the Sistars of Avalon. They wore black and they were into healing. When Jan told me about it I thought what a GREAT title — Jan wears black all the time and we’re sisters in a way. I read The Mists of Avalon after I did the album. There’s a sequel but I couldn’t read it – – the cover art was too cheesy.

PEOPLE: Sisters of Avalon is a very complex, multilayered record. Songs like The Ballad of Cleo and Joe are working so many different levels at the same time, almost like a collage. How do you construct a song like that?

Cyndi Lauper: I like to use a lot of different layers and textures. So does Jan. We both wanted the rythnm to be very strong. I love the Tennessee music box, which I’ve been learning to play with a bow. I was just so enamoured of it — and the Middle Eastern sounds. I also played electric dulcimer, and I played slide on it because I thought the guy who made it made it to be played slide.

PEOPLE: I think a slide dulcimer is NATURAL!

Cyndi Lauper: You don’t always find people like David Schnauffer, who is not only a musician but also a PROFESSORTOO much into it, because it has to have a certain purity. It’s a combination of the three types of music I like to do: dance, hip-hop and folk-rock. Maybe that’s FOUR…. It’s definitely a dance song — I just added these elements that I thought were real Americana — like the Tennessee dance box. And I thought it needed a story that was real Americana too so I gave it one. of dulcimer music. Just the thought that he would play it in a dancehouse music venue… Anyway, I guess the song was constructed with the rythmn first, but there are a lot of things that go into it. You try not to put

PEOPLE: Dance music will never die!!! What music are you listening to — and moving your bod to — these days?

Cyndi Lauper: The last Biggie Smalls album, Ani Di Franco — her live CD, the latest one. Ani Di Franco is a real hero of mine because she basically told everyone to get fucked. There’s something so fabulous about that.

PEOPLE: Oh yes!

Cyndi Lauper: And I heard that she makes more money than if she sold a LOT of records and got a smaller piece. I found a new House thing in the stores that I haven’t listened to yet — it’s next on my list. Hold on a minute, I’ll get it.

PEOPLE: Ah, house music… great stuff.

Cyndi Lauper: Funky Green Dog–The Way! I haven’t quite had the chance to listen to it yet. The Biggie album is in the last batch I got from the store & I listen to them one by one. It’s just really sad that they create these mythical gangster personas because a real gangster would NEVER say what they’re saying…and some poor jerk listens to it and goes out and shoots someone, using this as an excuse. Some of the sounds are really poignant and SAD — not because he’s dead, that’s just ironic — but some of the tracks are just so GREAT — the rythm, the swings –and I know where it comes from. I came from NYC and I know what it’s like. I’ve had friends who came from Bed-Stuy — it’s a hard place. That’s why the songs made me sad. Some of the lyrics are a little… well, I know… I think they did a really great job.

I LOVE that Ani Di Franco — Righteous Babe! What a title.

PEOPLE: I want to talk more about your record, but first I’m wondering… You’ve always been real hands-on with your music and its production. Do your songs come together in the studio, or do production and writing stay in separate spaces?

Cyndi Lauper: No. They come together the entire time you’re working on them so while you’re writing you’re also producing and recording. That’s the best way to do it. When we wrote the songs, we sat together in front of a fireplace with a Casio and a dulcimer and a guitar. Poor Jan! She likes the cold and I like the heat. You put the song down soon after you write it– but when you go into the studio, you start doing more work. And it develops more and more. Cleo started with the loop and the sample of the Egyptian stuff.

PEOPLE: Now you did some of the recording at a house up in Tuxedo Park. Did that go well? Did good work come out of it?

Cyndi Lauper: We did most of the basic stuff at my home in Connecticut and Jan’s studio in Tennessee. And then we took all the stuff and dumped it into Mark’s computer. That was hard. I tried to make everybody happy but it was difficult. I tried to let Mark know in a nice way that Jan and I knew what we were doing and we really weren’t looking for a Svengali. It was a really hard situation because at the same time, I found myself without a manager. So I found myself taking care of everybody — the gardener, the cook who didn’t speak English… It was kind of like “Fawlty Towers”!

PEOPLE: With you as Prunella Scales!

Cyndi Lauper: …I had my dog there who ate the ravioli, Mark didn’t like the food… there were great moments, there were tough moments. Would I do it the same way again? Probably no. I had to do it all in three months straight with everyone fighting. We were all living together. They all speak English from England; I speak whatever it is I speak. We needed a translator! We didn’t speak the same language.

PEOPLE: So you were more like the waiter from Barcelona…

Cyndi Lauper: There wasn’t enough time with Mark to hang out, to get how his mind worked before doing the album. But in the end I think he did an incredible job, Jan did an incredible job, and I’m very happy with it. Everyone really put their hearts into it, they didn’t just coast. And that’s what makes the difference — when people bring their hearts to it.

PEOPLE: Let’s talk some more about the results of that time and work… “Love To Hate” is a song we should be forced to listen to when we find ourselves talking negatively about anyone who isn’t sitting at the table. And it’s certainly a song that some pop culture writers should take to heart. Why is it so easy to talk trash, and why do we pretend that trash talk is innocent?

Cyndi Lauper: That’s a deep question! I don’t know — I hate the hypocrisy of everything sometimes.

We were at a really trendy restaurant with a business associate recently. It was like being in LA, but it was in New York! There was this one guy who had recently done very well for himself on the music scene sitting there, surrounded by lawyers. The lawyers knew me but they looked right through me. I was of no use to them, you see. And I looked at the kid and I knew — they were going to do to him what they’d done to ME. None of it is REAL. That’s what I kept thinking in my head, “dopey, dopey, it’s not real.” I just kept watching the fashion parade that was going on, the people doing blow at one of the other tables. I thought about those parties where nobody will talk to you till they know who you are… and Jan had had similar experiences, so we just wrote it.

PEOPLE: “You Don’t Know” is kind of a wonderfully caustic song with lyrics that skewer their target and leave a listener going “ouch” much as some Bob Dylan songs like “Just Like A Woman” once did. Is there a story behind the writing of that?

Cyndi Lauper: Well, I was mad when I wrote it. And also kind of frustrated. I had pulled an instrument out of the closet that was different from what I thought it was & I didn’t know how to tune it. So while I was complaining to Jan about somebody in the business who wouldn’t know the REAL me if he tripped over me on the street, I was also trying to tune this five-chord autoharp. So I started to write the song while we were talking and I was fooling with this thing… and meanwhile the Democratic Convention was on TV… and all the manipulation was driving me nuts! So I wanted to put that in too…

PEOPLE: A real Mixmaster approach!

Cyndi Lauper: I like to write what’s really going on. I was mad at myself too because every time you listen to other people and ignore your own instincts — who are you going to blame? See, we live in this society that’s so saturated with other people’s judgments — you can’t even see a movie unless it’s had a good review! You just for once want to think for yourself! You have to like take a step back and see the forest not the trees. That’s what the song was about. And I’m excited too because I was playing an instrument that I didn’t know how to play! I don’t have any fear anymore — if I like the sound, I use it.

PEOPLE: “Say A Prayer” has a great jazzy intimate sound, and lyrics reminding us of all the friends we’ve lost before their time. Is it hard to say something about the dead without sounding morose?

Cyndi Lauper: I don’t know. I know sometimes when I talk to people who struggle every day though their lives, and then you talk to somebody else who is making lots of trouble in their lives — that’s what the song was about, someone who was weaving themselves into a mess and hearing this while knowing that somebody else is really struggling to live and thinking: how important is this shit? That’s what was going on, those thoughts — and my own heartbreak about somebody I really cared about.

PEOPLE: “Fall Into Your Dreams” is a beautiful love song… the image of catching wishes from a falling star is very nice. How has your approach to writing a love song changed as you’ve gotten older?

Cyndi Lauper: It probably hasn’t. Except that when I write with Jan, with another woman — when you write with somebody you’re close to, you write more intimately. I guess more and more as I just become comfortable being with myself — which I guess I never have… It’s kind of nice.

PEOPLE: Which of the songs on your record surprised you the most? Something you didn’t expect coming from yourself.

Cyndi Lauper: Anything. I never expected ANYTHING to come out. I’m always frightened that nothing ever will. The way I grew up, I was always slow… I couldn’t read fast. I thought I was kind of dopey; everything took me forever to do. I always feel grateful when something creative happens. And it is trance-like.

PEOPLE: Sisters of Avalon is your 7th record, your 6th as a solo performer, and a lot of us who listen to you would say that almost every one has been a step forward artistically. What made you decide that it was time to record a CD with all new original material, and how important is it to you to stretch and to challange yourself with each new body of work?

Cyndi Lauper: You have to stretch and challenge yourself if you want to grow as an artist. And that’s a separate business from being an icon person. There’s a whole business of being FAMOUS. But then there’s a whole other business of being an arist, of being something creatively strong and free, of being the better part of who you are… and that was always my dream. At the end of A Night to Remember, I knew I could never go back. That was the end. I’d had it. And I didn’t think anyone would want to pay good money to see my spirit broken, least of all me. Twelve Deadly Cyns was a really good representation album, and there was an opporunity to have it be heard. I wanted to do an album in 1994 — I always want to do a new record, I don’t think you can ever do enough.

PEOPLE: Video has always been so important in your career. How about the video side of Sisters of Avalon? Are you still aiming at MTV, or are there getting to be enough outlets that you feel confident of reaching your audience?

Cyndi Lauper: I look at a video as a visual art form and I understand about the audience thing, but I think that a video should leave you with a feeling. You should be moved by it. You should either get the energy of it, or you should be mesmerised by it. You should get the visual charge from it. I always think you should approach it as though you were in art school trying to get an NEA grant… You should do the best. I always just try to do the best images I can — I direct my own videos. I love the visual side of it, I love all the technical stuff.

PEOPLE: You’re touring with Tina Turner. What’s that like? Do you do any songs together? What special thing are you getting from the experience?

Cyndi Lauper: Well, she has a very large audience that I play in front of. We play amphitheaters. My crowd is usually sitting on the lawn in the back — that’s how I know it’s them! Her audience is not necessarily my audience. Tina has a very set thing she’s doing right now, and what I’m doing is rather raw. But I love having the showcase for Sisters of Avalon. It’s a short show, 45 minutes. I can’t do two-hour shows in my delicate condition. But it’s great touring with another woman.

PEOPLE: Well time is running short on us — and it’s been GREAT having you online tonight — Cyndi, we alway ask this question of our artists… Do you have a particular favorite amongst the songs on Sisters of Avalon? And if so, which song, and why?

Cyndi Lauper: I don’t really. I look at it as a whole. I thought if I took one song off it, the album would be unbalanced. The one I almost took off it was “Fall Into Your Dreams.” But it came out a lot better than I thought it would. But I like all of them. I don’t know which one Jan likes best — I never asked her.

PEOPLE: Are your audiences picking out particular favorites?

Cyndi Lauper: I don’t get to perform all of it. I play half and half, old stuff and new stuff. They like “Cleo” and “Sisters of Avalon,” and “Searching,” which I do in the opening.

PEOPLE: Cyndi… Thanks SO much for spending this time with us tonight! It’s been real fun. Good luck with the record, and the tour!

Cyndi Lauper: Thank you! This has been fun.

PEOPLE: Yes it has… Cyndi Lauper’s new album, Sisters of Avalon is out from Epic Records! Good night! And goodnight to our audience too. This is Andrew Alden, on behalf of PEOPLE Online and Pathfinder, wishing you well!

Now that the word is out on her pregnancy, fans relate to Cyndi Lauper on a different, more confiding level.

“There are women who come up to me and they say things, some reassuring, some horrifying–it depends on how you look at it,” the singer says, bemused.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” she says, not talking of her pregnancy now, but of being on the road with Tina Turner. “It’s pretty great to be touring with another woman. It’s so romantic, don’t you think ?”

At age 43, Cyndi Lauper seems to have arrived at a point in her life where she clearly is content and enjoying what she is doing. It isn’t necessary to pull out damp clichés about motherhood-fulfilment-identification as a facile explanation because Cyndi has been identifying with women and telling their stories all along.

Yet, as far as the North American media are concerned, what the news of her pregnancy has done is to focus on her story. This is what we find.

In 1983, she was the first woman to have four top-five singles from one album, She’s So Unusual, the vitality of which was crystalized but also stigmatized by the song “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”.

Everybody got the “fun” message of it, but missed the feminist subtext and the ethnic diversity of the women in the subsequent video.

By the follow-up album, True Colors, Cyndi Lauper’s bird of paradise wardrobe and chirpy exuberance weren’t new anymore and North America more or less ignored her.

Elsewhere, however, Cyndi Lauper flourished, her “best of” album, Twelve Deadly Cyns, selling in the millions in Europe, Japan, South America, all places where she has toured to great reception.

With her Sisters of Avalon album, a wildly diverse, self-assured spectrum of grooves and emotions, she has come back, more or less, to find North America ready for her again. This, too, is what we find.

Cyndi Lauper, the film and TV actress. Cyndi Lauper, the director and producer. Cyndi Lauper, the multi-instrumentalist songwriter. Cyndi Lauper, the woman who helped pave the way for the women of strong character and flamboyant image whose careers are thriving today.

While Sisters of Avalon maintains the pop quotient, it also delves into world music, hip-hop beats, rock, even flavorings of country.

It also dares to be introspective one moment, enraged another. “Love to Hate”, for example, is a bracing track that is its own statement about Alanis and the breed of angry young women rockers without actually saying so.

“That’s a real person doing that.” Lauper explains the album’s musical and emotional range. “Every time I see something in real life, I want to write about it and reflect it. I mean, I don’t listen to just one radio station; I listen to four.

“Music has become one note-so one-dimensional. You don’t have a whole person you can look to or hold onto.”

FOXY BROWN: Hi, Cyndi !
CYNDI LAUPER: HOW ya’ doin’, doll ?

FB: Fine. I’ve been telling people, “I’m talking to Cyndi Lauper !” and they’re all like, “Yeah, right.”
CL: Well, you’re doing the interview now, hon.

FB: I wanted to ask you, being a female in the music industry, do you think the industry is sexist ?
CL: It is, but I don’t dwell on it, because my world isn’t like that. I decided a long time ago the only way to change things was for me to change my environment.

FB: Oh my God, I did that same thing. I have enough pressure, being that I’m young and with the things I talk about. You know, people say, “All Foxy does is talk about sex.” I get a lot of criticism for that and I don’t need anybody in my own camp [criticizing me too].
CL: Yeah, but what the hell is L.L. [Cool J] doing ?

FB: [laughs] My thing is I was always open with my sexuality, you know what I mean ? I feel there’s nothing to hide. And it’s been done. Everyone talks a little about sex. Even you !
CL: Who, me ? Well, I’ve talked about different kinds of things. “She Bop” was more [about] masturbation.

FB: See ?
CL: Well, it’s the safest kind of sex there is, doll.

FB: And you’re enjoying yourself at the same time !
CL: Can I tell you something ? What I got from your record was a certain view of life, of where you grew up. That’s what I heard.

FB: Really ? That’s strange, because if you listen to any news station, they’re always like, “Seventeen-year-old X-rated teen rapper [Foxy Brown].”
CL: Oh, fuck what everyone says. Don’t you know that everyone is always going to try and pigeonhole you ?

FB: I used to believe that, but now I can’t help but care what people say.
CL: NO, no, no. Wait a minute. Now, when you started doing this, sure you wanted to be successful, but in the end you know and I know that the joy is in the doing. It’s in the moment when all the rhythms click and the rhyme fits in just the right way. That’s the joy–the music–and that’s what nobody can ever take away from you. And, yeah, you may be pretty–lucky you–but it’s not about that. Even though you’re talking about sex, where is it taking place ? In what neighborhood ?

FB: Yeah, you’re right.
CL: Because really, as artists our job is almost like being a reporter. For my new album, “Sisters of Avalon”, I travelled around the world and wrote about the people close to me, the people I love.

FB: AS far as [my album] III Na Na, if I had had more experience, I would have had more input. ‘Cause [when we started working on it] everything, down to what I was wearing, was left up to the record company. After the album went platinum and I had a little leverage, I was like, “Look, check this out. I want my makeup artist, I want this, I want that.”
CL: You know, I was originally signed as only a singer and I guess that’s what they expected, but I had my own ideas. What I did (which you might want to do) is, I got a really simple set-up in my home–an Akai board–so I wouldn’t have to negotiate over the music that I did. And the less negotiation I had to do, the more music I could make. I play things like the omnichord–

FB: The omnichord ? I love that !
CL: Yeah, it’s dope-simple. On the new album I wrote the chords and I played the omnichord and the harmonium. I played that guitar solo on “Unhook the Stars,” too. [singing] “Da-da-na” ?

FB: Yeah, that’s the joint !
CL: You know what track I responded to on your CD ? “As If. . .”

FB: Yeah, that was straight from my heart.
CL: Well, it hit mine, and that is what you should focus on–that is what will make you a cut above. You’re not just selling sex, sweetie. You are a sexual human being, that’s all.

FB: And is there anything wrong with that ?
CL: Well, you know–it’s just that they sent all the Puritans over here.

FB: What I’m getting from you is good advice. Because sometimes I feel like I don’t know which way to go. I really enjoyed talking to you, Cyndi. Thank you so much.
CL: Good luck, sweetie. Knock ’em dead.

Singer Cyndi Lauper shows off a more mature sound on her latest album. But does she still just want to have fun? Larry Flick reports.

With her brilliantly crafted new Epic collection, Sisters of Avalon, Cyndi Lauper is working overtime in her desire to be viewed as an artist of far greater creative substance than the often cartoonish figure who became a leader of the MTV generation in 1984 with the kitschy ‘Girls just Want to Have Fun.’ Produced by the ever quirky and ebullient singer with Jan Pulsford and Mark Saunders, the album plays to Lauper’s considerable strengths as a vocalist and her marked maturity as a songwriter, with broad stylistic leanings that range from textured hip-hop and dance to guitar-driven alterna-pop.

Despite its seemingly disparate musical elements, Sisters of Avalon is a cohesive and powerful collection that is notable for the absence of the novelty ditties that have long been associated with the singer.

But is the world ready for the “serious” Cyndi Lauper? She certainly has some preconceived notions to overcome, but she firmly believes that her music will be met with open minds. ‘I believe in my heart that a great song will always find a home,’ she says. “These songs speak with an honesty that I hope others will connect with. I’ve always been open and free in my music, but I’m proud of the growth I’ve experienced in the last few years.

The secret to getting Sisters of Avalon heard is in the magic of live performance. In the past, Lauper’s records have been built almost exclusively around MTV and radio. And while those will remain key elements in elevating the visibility of this project, more emphasis will be placed on the singer’s chemistry with an audience. A smart move, because Lauper is never better or more beguiling than when she’s onstage. To that end, punters will have numerous opportunities to bare witness to her otherworldly presence in the coming months.

She is tempering a massive summer tour with Tina Turner with a handful of intimate club appearances. She recently turned the New York bar Splash upside down when she did a four-song acoustic set to the frothing approval of the bar’s patrons. ‘Sometimes, it’s like stepping into an alternate universe when I do a show,’ she says. ‘It’s like meeting people on a different plane and we’re sharing our hearts before resuming our real lives.”

Epic recently started the campaign for Sisters Of Avalon with the single “You Don’t Know,” a biting diatribe on the sheep-like mentality of society. It’s a commercially viable, funk-fortified pop jam that has been deftly remixed with a variety of trend-conscious dance beats by Tony Moran, Prince Quick Mix and Junior Vasquez. Response to the song has been incredibly positive, fueled by the fact that a number of indie retailers have been selling a Japanese pressing of the album since November.

“She’s one of those unique artists who has loyal followers that literally clamor for every bit of music or memorabilia they can get their hands on,’ says Marlon Creaton, who manages the Record Kitchen in San Francisco. ‘I agree that there are some people who will initially write off this album without listening. But it’s a good enough record to change a lot of those minds if the label stays committed to the record for longer than a couple of months; I think they will.’

Ironically, Lauper doesn’t view Sisters of Avalon as such a dramatic departure. “To me, this album is a natural progression from the songs on Hat Full of Stars,’ she says, referring to the 1993 album that had her dabbling in more textured and experimental rhythms and weightier lyrics.

If there is a difference between this album and those from her ’80s heyday, Lauper says that it’s in the way these tunes were assembled. “While I was on tour for Hat Full of Stars, I found myself fortunate to be working with musicians I felt I could record with,’ she says. “Remember, I started out as a singer/songwriter in a band called Blue Angel. Those are my roots. It’s always been strange to go into the studio with one set of people, and then go on the road with an entirely different group of people. I was longing to have a more cohesive experience.”

It was during the worldwide tours supporting Hat Full of Stars and the 1995 greatest-hits collection, 12 Deadly Cyns and Then Some, that some of the songs for Sisters of Avalon started to take shape. “I cannot begin to explain what a fabulous experience it was for all of us to be jammed into my hotel room every night, spontaneously putting our ideas together,” she says. “It was exciting because everyone comes from such different backgrounds and perspectives.”

Among the band members with whom she most closely connected was Jan Pulsford, a keyboardist who first tweaked Lauper’s interest with a tape of a world beat-spiced groove that would eventually evolve into the song “Searching.” ‘It was while I started putting words to that piece of music that I started to understand that we were on a special journey that felt so right,’ the singer says. ‘Jan and I are extremely compatible collaborators because she is so well-studied and I approach music in a real primal manner.

We complement each other perfectly.’ When the tours ended, Lauper and Pulsford recruited producer Mark Saunders, and together they began seeking an ideal setting in which to assemble the various ideas accumulated on the road. Their search lead them to a mansion in Tuxedo, New York, which they renovated into a studio. “It was ideal in that we were able to make it as technically proficient as we needed it to be,’ Lauper says, ‘but it also provided a warm and homey space that fed our souls. It was so beautiful to be working on a vocal and smell lilacs.”

With the experience of recording Sisters of Avalon a pleasant memory, Lauper says that she is itching to get out on the road and perform again. “I’ve never been more proud of a group of songs,’ she says’ ‘It will be interesting to see the shape they take onstage. I can’t wait to find out”.

This is really a whole new world for me. We were supposed to be there at noon, so I got there early, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, only to perfect the art of loitering for several hours with the other band members. They weren’t surprised; they knew we would be waiting around for most of the day. Whitney Houston’s band was rehearsing next door.

Everyone seemed to know each other. Bridget, the tour manager, kept updating us on Cyndi’s whereabouts and how many spins were being added on various radio stations and VH-1. Many phone calls were made. Scooter the drummer regaled us with the story of how he spent the weekend in jail. (Not a chronic occurrence, I was relieved to find out later.)

Cyndi showed up at around 4:30, got something to eat, put together a set list, and at about 6 PM got down to rehearsing with me and Melle, the new guitarist, for an acoustic tune we’re performing (just the 3 of us) on Wednesday morning on WPLJ. Of course, this particular tune is one of the very few I’m supposed to play mandolin on. Luckily I had practiced it, not really realizing that my first ever public playing of this instrument would be for thousands of people, totally exposed…

Anyway, it’s all pretty exciting, despite the fact that we sat around most of the day. I’m exhausted nevertheless, because every minute I kept expecting things to happen and I was in alert mode for hours on end. Plus, I feel pretty inept on the mandolin — but luckily Cyndi is really nice and is trying to make me and Melle feel comfortable.

Another apparent goal is to eliminate all traces of vibrato from my voice. I was urged to make ugly faces, stick my tongue out, and sigh heavily in preparation for my breathy background vocals. Relaxing was encouraged, but quite impossible for both me and Melle, who were wound up like little box springs.