Blue Angel (1980)
In 1980, Cyndi Lauper and her band Blue Angel released a self-titled album on Polydor Records. The lineup featured Cyndi on vocals and John Turi on saxophone, along with Lee Brovitz (guitar), Johnny Morelli (drums), and Arthur Neilson (guitar). The album was a new wave/rockabilly hybrid with some good stuff on it… “Maybe He’ll Know” (written by Cyndi and Turi) and a soaring cover of Gene Pitney’s “I’m Gonna Be Strong” among them. The single “I’m Gonna Be Strong” charted at No. 38 in Austria. In 2003, Rolling Stone included the cover art as one of the 100 best new wave album covers. Despite the quality of the music, the album flopped commercially. The band’s manager sued Cyndi for $80,000 after they fired him, which forced her into bankruptcy. Blue Angel fell apart, and Cyndi went back to singing in New York clubs while working odd jobs to survive.
She’s So Unusual (1983)
Released on October 14, 1983, on Portrait Records, She’s So Unusual was Cyndi’s solo debut… and it was massive. Produced by Rick Chertoff with Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman of The Hooters as her primary studio musicians, the album peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and stayed in the top 40 for 65 weeks. It remained on the chart for 172 weeks total. The album sold over 9.5 million copies worldwide, including more than 4.5 million in the United States alone (certified 7× Platinum by the RIAA as of 2023).
Six singles were released. The big ones:
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” — peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Written by Robert Hazard, it became a worldwide hit and its music video went into heavy rotation on MTV. Won Best Female Video at the inaugural 1984 MTV Video Music Awards.
“Time After Time” — No. 1 on the Hot 100 for two weeks (Cyndi’s first No. 1). Nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys. Top 10 in 15 countries.
“She Bop” — No. 3 on the Hot 100. Notable for being the first top-10 song to reference female masturbation. Made it onto the PMRC’s “Filthy Fifteen” list.
“All Through the Night” — No. 5 on the Hot 100. When it charted, Cyndi became the first woman to score four top-five singles from one album.
“Money Changes Everything” — No. 27.
“When You Were Mine” — a Prince cover, not released as a single in the U.S. but got attention anyway.
The album cover, shot in front of the closed World in Wax Musée on Coney Island, won Janet Perr the Grammy for Best Recording Package. The cover shot of Cyndi barefoot in fishnet stockings with her red heels kicked off in front of her became one of the most recognizable album images of the decade. At the 27th Grammy Awards, the album earned six nominations including Album of the Year and Record of the Year, winning Best New Artist and Best Recording Package. Rolling Stone later ranked it at No. 487 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
True Colors (1986)
Cyndi’s second album, released September 15, 1986, on Portrait/Epic Records. This time she co-produced the whole thing with Lennie Petze and had much more involvement in the songwriting. She co-wrote most of the album with Essra Mohawk, John Turi, Billy Steinberg, and Tom Kelly. Guests included Billy Joel, Nile Rodgers, Aimee Mann, Adrian Belew, The Bangles, Ellie Greenwich, Rick Derringer, and Angela Clemmons-Patrick. The cover photo was taken by Annie Leibovitz.
The album peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 (same as her debut) and topped the Australian chart for four weeks. In Japan, it actually outsold She’s So Unusual. Certified double platinum by the RIAA, it sold around 7 million copies worldwide… her second best-selling release.
Singles:
“True Colors” — No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks (Cyndi’s second and last No. 1). Written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, originally submitted to Anne Murray, who passed on it. Grammy-nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Over the years, the song became an anthem for the LGBTQ community, was used as the theme for the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 2003 Rugby World Cup, and has been covered by Phil Collins, among others.
“Change of Heart” — No. 3 on the Hot 100. Written by Essra Mohawk. The Bangles sang background vocals. Music video filmed at Trafalgar Square in London. Went gold in the U.S.
“What’s Going On” — No. 12. A cover of the Marvin Gaye classic.
“Boy Blue” — No. 71. Video was a live performance from her Paris concert at Le Zénith.
“Maybe He’ll Know” — released as a single in the U.S. only.
Cyndi told The New York Times that the album’s songs were a way of saying “Have the courage of your convictions and love yourself a little.” She also sang the theme song for Pee-wee’s Playhouse that year, credited as “Ellen Shaw.”
Best Remixes (1989)
Released only in Japan. A collection of remixes drawn from She’s So Unusual and True Colors. Not much more to it than that… a completist item for fans.
A Nigth to Remember (1989)
Cyndi’s third album, released May 8, 1989, on Epic Records. The album had a rough road to release. It was originally planned for late 1988 under the title Kindred Spirit, but after the single “Hole in My Heart (All the Way to China)” and the movie Vibes both underperformed, the project got shelved, reworked, retitled, and pushed to 1989. Three new songs were added, other tracks were remixed, and the album came out looking quite different from what had originally been planned.
Cyndi wrote and produced most of the record herself, with additional production by Phil Ramone on select tracks. Contributing writers included Desmond Child, Christina Amphlett of the Divinyls, Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, Diane Warren, and Franke Previte. Guest musicians: Eric Clapton (guitar on “Insecurious”), Bootsy Collins, Larry Blackmon, Bakithi Kumalo, Nile Rodgers, and Rick Derringer.
The album peaked at No. 37 on the Billboard 200 in the U.S. In the UK, however, it was actually Cyndi’s highest-charting album, reaching No. 9. Worldwide, it sold about 1.5 million copies.
Singles:
“I Drove All Night” — No. 6 on the Hot 100, Cyndi’s last top-10 hit in the U.S. Also peaked at No. 7 in the UK, No. 8 in Canada and France. The song was originally written for Roy Orbison, whose version didn’t come out until 1992 (three years after Cyndi’s and four years after his death). Earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
“My First Night Without You” — No. 62 on the Hot 100, No. 53 in the UK.
“A Night to Remember” — modest chart performance.
Cyndi herself jokingly refers to this album as “A Night to Forget” because of the poor reviews and disappointing sales, compounded by personal and professional problems with producer and then-boyfriend David Wolff during the making of the record.
Hat Full of Starts (1993)
Released in May 1993, Cyndi’s fourth album took a sharp turn. Gone was the bright pop of the ’80s. With production by Junior Vasquez, Hat Full of Stars moved into an R&B-influenced sound with world music instrumentation. Lyrically, Cyndi went deep: the album tackled spousal abuse (“Sally’s Pigeons”), racism, abortion, and the complexities of relationships. She co-wrote and co-produced the entire album.
The critical response was strong:
The Village Voice: “startlingly wonderful… the singing is stellar, the arrangements are happening.”
Rolling Stone: 3½ stars. “Her multi-octave voice has never sounded better.”
The Los Angeles Times called it “her most consistently tuneful and ambitious album.”
The New York Times praised the songwriting and noted “the new Cyndi Lauper still embraces the old one.”
Cyndi directed three of the album’s music videos herself, making her one of the very few artist-directors in pop at that time. When talking about the album she said: “I wanted to make the album I always needed to make. I had to say the things I never could.”
Commercially, though, the album tanked. Sales were poor, largely because of a severe lack of promotion from the label. No real singles broke through. A lot of fans consider it her best work, and it’s hard to argue with them. In 1992, Cyndi also appeared in the English version of Starmania, a French rock opera, and released the single “The World Is Stone” from it, which became a hit in several countries, particularly in France.
Twelve Deadly Cyns and Then Some (1995)
A greatest-hits compilation released worldwide in 1994 but held back in the U.S. until the summer of 1995. The album collected the major singles from her career up to that point and included two re-recorded tracks: a new version of “I’m Gonna Be Strong” (originally from the Blue Angel album) and a reworking of her first big hit, retitled “Hey Now (Girls Just Want to Have Fun).” It gave a whole new generation a point of entry into Cyndi’s catalogue.
Sisters of Avalon (1997)
Cyndi’s fifth album was released in Japan in 1996 and everywhere else in 1997. It was the first album where she had a hand in writing every single song. Keyboardist Jan Pulsford co-wrote 11 of the tracks with her, and the album was produced by Cyndi, Pulsford, and Mark Saunders. Guest musicians included Nigel Pulsford, lead guitarist of Bush, on the tracks “You Don’t Know” and “Love to Hate.”
The album was written and recorded across Tennessee and Connecticut, and finished in an old mansion in Tuxedo Park, New York, where Cyndi was living at the time. It sold about 1 million copies worldwide… moderate numbers, but the album found a dedicated audience in the gay community for its dance and club stylings and its topical themes. It didn’t produce any major chart hits, but it has aged well.
Merry Christmas and Have a Nice Life (1998)
Cyndi’s last album for Epic/Sony, released in late 1998. As the title suggests, it was a Christmas record… but not a typical one. Cyndi mixed original material with standards, and the production drew from folk-rock, cajun, and celtic music. Her version of “Silent Night” turned up in a Pampers commercial. It didn’t get much attention, but it’s very much a Cyndi album… not what you’d expect from a holiday record.
Shine EP (2002)
The story behind this album is a mess. Cyndi prepared her seventh album in 2001, returning to her early pop/rock sound. Just weeks before the scheduled September 2001 release, her label, Edel America Records, went bankrupt. The 12-track album never got its official release… though the tracks were eventually leaked online. In 2002, Cyndi put out a 5-track EP with some of the Shine material, and it sold decently. The full album eventually got a proper release in Japan in 2004, but it never came out in the U.S. as a full album.
At Last (2003)
Released in November 2003 (originally titled Naked City during production), At Last is a covers album. Cyndi took on standards and classics, including the Etta James title track, “Walk On By,” “Stay,” and “Unchained Melody.” It was a Top 40 hit in both the U.S. and Australia, and became Cyndi’s best-selling album since Twelve Deadly Cyns… her highest entry on the Billboard Top 40 in years. In 2005, she earned a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Composition Accompanying a Vocal for her interpretation of “Unchained Melody.” The companion live DVD, Live… At Last, achieved gold certification in the U.S.
The Body Acoustic (2004)
Under a new contract with Sony Music, Cyndi released The Body Acoustic in 2005 (sometimes listed as 2004). The concept: acoustic reinterpretations of songs from across her catalogue, plus two new tracks including “Above the Clouds.” The guests on this one are all over the place: Shaggy, Ani DiFranco, Adam Lazzara of Taking Back Sunday, Jeff Beck, Puffy AmiYumi, Sarah McLachlan (who duetted on “Time After Time”), and Vivian Green. The album was reissued in 2023 and was well received by fans who appreciated hearing her hits stripped back.
Bring Ya To The Brink (2008)
Cyndi’s first album of all-new original material in seven years. Recorded during 2007, the working title was Savoir-faire, but she changed it to Bring Ya to the Brink and released it in the spring of 2008. She went to England and France in the summer of 2007 to write for the album, collaborating with dance artists Basement Jaxx, Digital Dog, Dragonette, Kleerup, and others. She described it as a mainly dance record with good rhythm. The first single in Japan was “Set Your Heart.” Other singles included “Into the Nightlife,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, and “Same Ol’ Story,” which also reached No. 1 on that chart. A worldwide tour followed the release.
Memphis Blues (2010)
A blues album. From Cyndi Lauper. Yeah. Memphis Blues, her tenth (some sources say eleventh) studio album, was released on June 22, 2010. It was a full-on blues album, recorded in Memphis with a roster of blues veterans. It debuted at No. 26 on the Billboard 200… her highest-charting album on that chart since True Colors back in 1986. More impressively, it parked itself at No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart for 13 consecutive weeks and became Billboard’s biggest selling blues album of 2010. It was nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album at the 2011 Grammys. The New York Post voted it the 7th best album of 2010. By November 2010, it had sold 600,000 copies worldwide. The Memphis Blues Tour that followed included more than 140 shows across every continent.
Detour (2016)
Cyndi’s twelfth and (so far) most recent studio album. Detour is a country record… 12 covers of classic country songs from the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, including songs by Patsy Cline, Wanda Jackson, and others. It was recorded in Nashville and produced by Tony Brown, with Seymour Stein as executive producer. Duet partners: Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Jewel, and Alison Krauss.
The album debuted at No. 29 on the Billboard 200 and No. 4 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Cyndi said the album came from growing up listening to country music on a transistor radio in her aunt’s kitchen. She told Billboard: “It’s a real singer’s album.”
Cyndi took Detour on a 35-city tour, mixing the classic country covers with her pop hits. Boy George joined her for a few dates. She told the audience at the time that she wanted the album to be an honest tribute, not a career pivot. In a Billboard interview, she admitted she still wanted an Oscar someday to complete the EGOT: “I want that Oscar.”
For the numbers people: Cyndi has sold around 50 million records worldwide (albums, singles, and DVDs combined). The RIAA puts her certified U.S. album sales at 9.5 million, with She’s So Unusual as the big one at 7× Platinum.