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True colors lyrics cyndi lauper11/16/2023 ![]() ![]() “True Colors” gets away with all that because it radiates a sheer, overwhelming goodness. But pop songs are allowed to be pat and simplistic, and they’re allowed to be dated, too. The song’s message is a little bit pat and simplistic, and it’s got some production choices that anchor it to its moment in some regrettable ways. But “True Colors” is probably the Cyndi Lauper song that’s offered the most comfort to the most people over the decades. (That was still good enough, mind you, for True Colors to go double platinum.)īut True Colors has “True Colors.” “True Colors” isn’t Cyndi Lauper’s best song, and it’s not her most famous. And True Colors ultimately resonated way less than She’s So Unusual, selling only about a third of what her first album had moved. It’s weighed down by the thudding corporate-pop production sound that every big album had at the time. It’s got a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” that nobody really needed. True Colors has contributions from a whole lot of famous people: Billy Joel, Nile Rodgers, the Bangles, Rick Derringer, Pee Wee Herman. Compared to She’s So Unusual, True Colors, Lauper’s second album, is a bit bloated and unwieldy. But as the center of pop turned away from early-MTV new wave and back toward corporate rock, Lauper no longer fit in quite the same way. Like most of the mid-’80s WWF roster, she was a human cartoon character. Lauper’s bright, outlandish energy was perfect for pro wrestling. (“The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough” peaked at #10. That same year, a bunch of WWF wrestlers, most notably Rowdy Roddy Piper and the Iron Shiek, starred in Lauper’s awesomely cartoonish video for “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough,” her song from the soundtrack to The Goonies. At the first WrestleMania in 1985, for instance, Lauper managed Wendi Richter, dancing around the ring with Richter when she won the Women’s Championship. For instance: She helped make wrestling popular.Īfter the wrestler-turned-manager Captain Lou Albano made cameos in a bunch of her early videos, Lauper started showing up at World Wrestling Federation shows just as the WWF was making a push to go from a regional promotion to the world’s biggest wrestling company. For the few seconds that she’s singing, she makes the song about her. On that song, her voice and presence are huge. She reportedly didn’t think “ We Are The World” was a good song, but she still nailed her part, giving arguably the most memorable vocal performance of the whole track. Lauper definitely had some star moments during her run. It has found its way to the people who need it. “True Colors” has transcended both its moment and its original recording. With her second and final #1 single, Lauper sang the kind of song that lingers - a soft anthem of warm, friendly encouragement. But when Cyndi Lauper was on top, she did something with it. Lauper turned out to be more Joe Pesci than Robert De Niro - the character actor, not the movie star. Lauper, by contrast, has a natural-goofball charisma, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as starpower. Madonna had a killer instinct, and that was a key element of her starpower. Lauper, on the other hand, never seemed determined to remain the center of attention, to keep the solar system revolving around her. With one album, the 30-year-old Lauper had moved from the margins to the center.īut Cyndi Lauper was not Madonna, another singer who came from the New York new wave landscape around the same time and who figured out, again and again, how to ride the constantly-shifting zeitgeist. The incandescent ballad “ Time After Time” made it to #1. The album sold six million copies and sent four singles into the top 10. The loopy energy of She’s So Unusual was perfectly timed for that early-MTV moment. When Lauper showed up with her debut album She’s So Unusual at the end of 1983, she was a true American pop oddball - a new-wave Muppet with neon hair, thrift-shop clothes, and a voice that sounded like Joe Cocker had a baby with Betty Boop. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.Ĭyndi Lauper wasn’t built to be a part of the pop establishment - or, at least, she wasn’t built to remain a part of the pop establishment. ![]()
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