[Unusual for Forty Years] -- Cyndi Lauper is a singer, songwriter, activist, and actress. She composed the Tony Award winning score for the Broadway musical Kinky Boots. And her decades-long career was pretty much jump-started by her solo debut album, She's So Unusual, which was released forty years ago this week – on October 14, 1983. She's So Unusual peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200 and scored two awards: Best Recording Package (1985) and Best New Artist (1985). It was also the first debut album by a female artist to generate four top-five singles on the Billboard Hot 100 [Billboard.com, October 2023].
I'm not certain there's another debut that album so thoroughly captured an artist's personality while simultaneously contributing to a decade's style.
The album had six singles, five of which all reached the top five (as I noted above), but the songs everyone remembers from this album are, of course, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," "Time After Time," and "She Bop." "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" topped charts all over the world, including peaking at #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, #1 on US Dance Club Songs, and #1 on US Cash Box Top 100. It was also nominated for a bunch of awards, winning two: American Video Awards for Best Female Performance (1983) and MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video (1984). "Time After Time" likewise topped charts, peaking at #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, the US Adult Contemporary, and US Cash Box Top 100 charts, and winning several awards. "She Bop," as befits the album's third single, is third in critical and commercial reception as related to the first two singles; it peaked at #3 on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and the US Cash Box Top 100 while also doing pretty much top 40 or better around the world.
Flashback: She's So Unusual (October 14, 1983)
And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.
I'll see you in seven!
No comments:
Post a Comment