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Girls just want to have a comeback

Back from obscurity, Cyndi Lauper is kicking butt.

In the mid-'80s, Cyndi Lauper built a sizeable fan base on the strength of her thrift-store chic fashions, curious brand of feminism and, of course, powerful pop sensibility.

But for the past decade, those fans had to work hard to rally behind their idol.

Lauper's albums could barely be found on record-store shelves. Her concert appearances were generally confined to opening slots for Tina Turner and Cher. And her second career as an actress all but stalled.

So, who's the diva du jour? None other than the Grammy-winning girl who just wanted to have fun. But these days, it takes more than a party-girl attitude to get ahead.

"I'm stubborn," says Lauper, who performs in Sydney in July. "I never listen to anybody who tells me I can't do something."

The "something" that has reignited Lauper's career is At Last, an album of pop classics - mostly from the '60s - that has received terrific reviews.

For those who remember Lauper for such perky '80s tunes as She Bop, Money Changes Everything and her signature hit, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, it's something of a shocker - a stripped-down collection of songs that shows the 50-year-old Lauper in more mature form.

Though her New York accent remains as delightfully thick as ever, Lauper sings with a newfound world-weariness that brings out the hard truth in selections ranging from La Vie en Rose to Unchained Melody to the Etta James title track. A perfect case in point: her version of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David gem, Walk On By, that Dionne Warwick turned into a pop bauble so many decades ago.

When you listen to Lauper's spare, gritty version, there's no mistaking it for ear candy. "I was wondering if this was a torch song," Lauper says of her approach. The essential ingredient, she explains, was finding the right key to sing the song and expose her vulnerability. "A singer is a storyteller. I always try to find a spot in my voice that best suits the character of the story."

Which is not to say the album doesn't have its upbeat moments. Lauper takes some giddy chances with songs, turning Stay into a salsa celebration and On the Sunny Side of the Street into a reggae affair. And she has plenty of fun playing off a bemused Tony Bennett on Makin' Whoopee. (Another prominent guest artist: Stevie Wonder, who contributes a harmonica solo on Lauper's version of his Until You Come Back to Me.)

The tie that binds this eclectic grouping? Lauper says these are the songs she heard as a kid growing up in the New York neighbourhood of Ozone Park, Queens - "a melting pot where Germans, Italians, Russians and around the block African-Americans lived", she writes in the album's liner notes. "And where each summer, music and families spilled out of row houses into backyards."

But the music wasn't the only thing that united these outer-borough denizens. There was also the "belief that Manhattan was Mecca. The Holy Grail, where all dreams led".

Lauper, who struggled through high school, found that Holy Grail in the '70s and '80s, working with local bands until she secured a record deal. The result was her 1983 debut, She's So Unusual, which led to the runaway single Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

Even with her outrageously coloured hair and offbeat sense of fashion - Lauper worked in a vintage-clothing shop and once remarked that she couldn't make up her to mind what to wear so "I wore it all, you know" - there was something about the pop star that made her approachable to fans. (The oddball "girl power" message of Girls Just Want to Have Fun didn't hurt, either.)

A critic recently described her as "a huggable alternative to Madonna".

But Madonna was able to build on the momentum of her early career. Not Lauper. By the mid-'90s, she was a pop relic. Her 1993 album Hat Full of Stars didn't even crack Billboard's Top 100. And by 2002, she dispensed with album-making and released an EP, Shine.

Lauper also tried her hand at acting, with mixed results. She garnered an Emmy for her work on the sitcom Mad About You, but she wasn't able to fulfill her dream of launching her own TV show, despite completing a pilot.

Still, the '90s were productive for Lauper. In 1991, she married the actor David Thornton and in 1997, the couple had a son, Declyn. Lauper makes it clear that family life has rearranged her priorities. These days, she's looking to star in a Broadway show - she won't get more specific than that - so she can pursue her career without leaving New York. Her son is a budding ice hockey champ, and she's got games and practices to attend.

Is she afraid he might get hurt playing such a rough-and-tumble sport?

"They've got good gear now," she counters. And she hopes he'll learn that "skill is more valuable than fighting".

Then again, Lauper has shown a little feistiness goes a long way - at least when it comes to the music biz. She credits some of her current success to the lessons she learned touring with Cher in the past few years.

"She pushed me ... She was a real fan of mine," Lauper says. "Sisterhood is a powerful thing."

But those who saw the Cher-Cyndi show might argue that Lauper deserved bigger billing. As much as you can admire Cher's remarkably preserved physique - and her own outrageous sense of attire - Lauper is, by far, the better singer.

For her part, Lauper sees the pairing more as a "one-two punch".

"I kicked their butt one way, she kicked it another," she says.

Posted by thinkum at April 29, 2004 04:39 PM