Cyndi Lauper - True Colors - (1986) MP3 VBR

Cyndi Lauper - True Colors - (1986) MP3 VBR.

Track list

Cyndi Lauper - True Colors

01. Change Of Heart 04:24
02. Maybe He'll Know 04:27
03. Boy Blue 04:46
04. True Colors 03:47
05. Calm Inside The Storm 03:54
06. What's Going On 04:38
07. Iko Iko 02:09
08. The Faraway Nearby 02:59
09. 911 03:16
10. One Track Mind 03:41

Biography by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Cyndi Lauper was one of the biggest stars of the early MTV era, selling five million copies of her debut album, She's So Unusual, as well as scoring a string of four Top Ten hits from the record, including the major hits "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "Time After Time." Lauper's thin, girlish voice and gleefully ragtag appearance became one of the most distinctive images of the early '80s, which helped lead her not only to the top of the charts, but also to stardom. Throughout America, there were numbers of teenage girls dressing like Lauper and using "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" as an anthem, a call to arms for self-expression. At first, her music was a bright, colorful new wave fusion of a number of styles, including new wave, post-punk, reggae, pop, and funk. Both her music and her appearance helped popularize -- and just as importantly, sanitize --- the image of punk and new wave for America, making it an acceptable part of the pop landscape. Lauper didn't follow through on the success of She's So Unusual, choosing to turn toward middle-of-the-road balladry and mainstream pop, but her first album remains a benchmark of the early '80s.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in the neighboring borough of Queens, Lauper (born June 22, 1953) dropped out of high school in her late teens, choosing to sing in a number of local cover bands instead. Eventually, her voice was so strained she turned to voice lessons from Katherine Agresta, a well-known vocal teacher in New York. In 1977, Lauper began writing her own material with keyboardist John Turi. The duo formed Blue Angel that same year. Over the next few years, the group built up a solid following in New York, culminating in the release of an eponymous debut album on Polydor in 1980. The Blue Angel record flopped and shortly afterward, Lauper filed for bankruptcy, which led to the disbandment of Blue Angel.
Following the breakup of the group, Lauper sang in local clubs and restaurants. In 1983, her manager and boyfriend David Wolff managed to secure her a contract with Portrait. At the end of the year, she released her debut album, She's So Unusual. Helped by heavy MTV support of the album's first single/video "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," She's So Unusual became a major hit in the spring of 1984, eventually climbing to number four on the U.S. charts; it would wind up going platinum five times, as well as becoming a hit in the U.K. and Europe. "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" peaked at number two, while its follow-up, the ballad "Time After Time," reached number one; two other songs, "She Bop" and "All Through the Night," went Top Ten.
With the success of She's So Unusual under her belt, Lauper was an official star, yet she wasn't able to maintain her popularity. During 1985 she worked on her follow-up album; her only release of the year was "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough," the theme song from the children's adventure film The Goonies. Her second album, True Colors, appeared in the fall of 1986, and while it was successful -- the title track went to number one, while the album peaked at number four and went platinum -- its softer, adult contemporary sound lost Lauper some fans.
Lauper's career continued to lose momentum, as her feature film debut in 1988's comedy Vibes bombed. A Night to Remember, her third album, was released to weak reviews in 1989, and although it spawned the Top Ten hit "I Drove All Night," it suffered from disappointing sales, peaking at number 37. The next year, she severed her relationship with Wolff and married actor David Thornton.
After taking a few years off, Lauper returned in 1993 with Hat Full of Stars, an album where she co-produced and co-wrote all of the tracks. The record stiffed, peaking at 112. The following year, the hits compilation Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some was released in the U.K.; the album reached number two, while a remixed "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" became a number one hit. Twelve Deadly Cyns was released in America the following career to less attention. Lauper released Sisters of Avalon, her first album of new material in four years, in the spring of 1997 to generally positive reviews, yet the record didn't chart. Merry Christmas...Have a Nice Life! followed in late 1998. After a long hiatus, Lauper returned to the studio in 2003 for At Last, a collection of pop standards that garnered favorable reviews and spawned a live DVD, Live...At Last. The Body Acoustic, collection of stripped-down reinvemtions of previous hits, followed in 2005

Review by Eugene Chadbourne

There were a few years in the mid-'80s when one couldn't go out for a cup of coffee without encountering Cyndi Lauper in one form or another. Her videos were playing constantly on MTV, her music was everywhere on the radio, and, best of all, children were even dressing up as Cyndi for Halloween. In retrospect, it was a Lauper-ish time but it was all over quite quickly; in fact, the period in the ultra-limelight didn't even span the period covered by two album releases, which means that this follow-up to her smash debut album was relegated to the also-ran pile, with sad results such as only one sort-of hit single (the title track) and nobody apparently interested in imitating the skirt she wore on the back cover photo, which seems like it is made of slashed-up concert posters. Kind of a shame since so much love and attention went into this album. Guest stars and high-dollar session musicians abound, including other '80s icons such as the Bangles and the manic Pee Wee Herman, who provides a great little answering-machine bit at the end of "911." Lauper is a fantastic vocalist, meaning that any record producer worth hiring would be happy to dream up endless settings for her. This album is nothing if not ambitious, and some of the stretches really pay off, such as the ultimately endearing cover of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On." Other aspects date badly. For example, highly reverberated and artificial sounding drums and keyboards were really popular at the time, but a vocalist with a clear voice such as Lauper sounds much better in the context of real instruments with their warmer sounds. When it comes to tunes such as the nice Cajun number "The Faraway Nearby," drums should have been turned way down and other instrumental colors brought up. Despite these sorts of problems, there really wasn't that much music recorded by this artist during her most popular period, so fans will no doubt want to own it all.

Enjoy.