Why did Cyndi Lauper's singing career go straight down the shitter?

Her song "Time after time" is one of the worst song ever written. Stupid lyrics and terrible melody.

Not as attractive. Didn’t reinvent herself. Sound wasn’t diverse enough. Madonna was a better slab of clay/blank canvas for actual artists to mold. But as we see now, there was never any there there with madonna. She’s a soulless, unevolved sociopath with the spelling/grammar skills of a 7th grader.

Her career lasted a lot longer and she sold more records than most singers. I assume she's not hurting for money.

She won aT ony for Kinky Boots and still tours. That's hardly the shitter.

I think she did what she wanted to do. She wasn’t willing to do anything to stay in the spotlight like Madonna. She recorded some great material in the 1990s that was never really super popular but was excellent, and deep content. She recorded a song about a childhood friend of hers that died from a back alley abortion.

She has been on Howard Stern many times and is surprisingly down to earth. She’s been through a lot in her life. Early on before she was famous she was sexually assaulted by her band mates.

She did an album of standards that was well received. As r4 mentioned she won a fucking TONY for Kinky Boots. She is 68, soon to be 69 fucking years old and is more vibrant and lovely than many 15 plus years younger. Don't get me started on a certain 63 year old disaster who's thrown HER legacy, let alone what appears to be her longevity down the shitter.

From most, if not all accounts, Lauper is a kind, generous and talented soul. May she have many more years doing what she does so well.

Didn't we have this thread last week?

[quote] From most, if not all accounts, Lauper is a kind, generous and talented soul.

Well, two out of three, at least.

R8 AKA the smell of meth and death.

She was/is not a shrewd girl/woman, she entered the boxing/wrestling in WWE but didn't really know how to use the wrestling to help her sing career, or vice versa.

She did make missteps, like becoming so involved in the wrestling shows (it was WWF at that time) just because she was friends with Captain Lou Albano and he had been in her videos. But fundamentally, she was a quirky niche artist who made her solo debut at a perfect time and was briefly a megastar. She went on to have what made sense for her: a good career with a loyal fan base, with a handful of big hits everyone knows, all from the first three years. She has more in common artistically with Aimee Mann than with Madonna.

She just wanted to have fun.

1: Lack of consistently strong, commercial pop songs.

2: Failure to keep up with changing trends,

3: A clownish image that stuck her in time in the mid 80s.

She's had a great career. She's made a lot of money from Kinky Boots. And will continue to do so.

She played a recurring character on “Bones” too.

Madonna would KILL for Cyndi's talent.

Kinky Boots grossed $319 MILLION and she was the first woman to win a Tony for music and lyrics ALONE, no co-writer. You don't call every baseball player a failure because he wasn't Hank Aaron or Joe DiMaggio. Why is a singer a failure because she didn't achieve Madonna's level of fame? Few people have.

Well, what happened when MJ continued to produce pop hits throughout the 1990s? He made laughable, unmemorable, dumpster music. A lot of artists do that later on. Maybe she didn't want to be remembered for that.

R18 The other problem with Michael Jackson was that he reached a point where every goddam music video had to be a fucking 15 minute “short film.” So the actual song had to be padded with 5 minutes of crotch grabbing and another 5 minutes of some other absurd behavior. And then he did this ad nauseam.

His face was horrendous by then too and an image-dependent career couldn't stand that.

I never really liked her music, but I do like her. I've been reading her Memoir off and on for the last week. Its really pretty good, but my attention span has been scrap lately, so I haven't finished it yet, but it is entertaining and she tells it well.

Fucking hell. Why has this gone to discussing Michael Jackson? Make a new thread.

Don't confuse acknowledging her commercial pop career petered out, with calling her talentless. They are two different things.

Her and Aimee Mann should do a tour, THAT’D be one I’d go to.

Cyndi Lauper's long-term success is better than 90% of music counterparts. The fact that she didn't have the career heights or popularity of Madonna is a dumb analogy.

Oh come on. I acknowledge she's extremely talented and likeable, but she failed to sustain the megastardom promised by She's So Unusual. The next album only had one major hit single and then she was effectively off the A-list.

True Colors had three big hits. The title track, then Change of Heart (#3) and her cover of What's Going On (#12). It's true you don't hear the latter two very often now, but then, you don't hear the later singles from She's So Unusual all that often now either. Her three most enduring songs are Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Time After Time, and True Colors. And, I guess, the Goonies theme song, if you're really into that movie.

Cyndi had the same trajectory as Tina Turner in the '80s. A huge album with numerous hits in 1984. A hit song from a 1985 summer movie (although Tina actually appeared in her movie). A successful followup album with more hits in 1986-87, which only looked disappointing in comparison to the last one. Then a 1989 album that was at a much lower level of success, with only one song that most non-fans will recognize (I Drove All Night; The Best).

The main difference is that Tina had been a star much earlier, so her '80s success was a comeback. Cyndi was a new face.

Her career did not go down the shitter. She is a very different artist and performer from Madonna. OP is pretty clueless.

She was too weird, even for 80s standards. Her persona could be incredibly grating. She tried acting more normal for her last album of the 80s, but the general public was over her by that time. Good for her for reinventing herself in other areas though.

I've heard she can be very unpleasant. Maria Kanellis, ironically a wrestler and wrestling manager, publicly said that Cyndi was very mean towards her when they appeared on The Apprentice together.

[quote]The next album only had one major hit single and then she was effectively off the A-list.

The problem with True Colors is she junked her quirky, upbeat sound in order to present as a Serious Artist (the cover of What's Going On, ffs) and it just wasn't what people wanted from her. She lost her sense of humor musically and in combination with the musical tides shifting, her momentum was gone.

Her cover of What's Going On is ear-splittingly awful.

A very talented woman but viewed as too quirky.

We JUST had this thread less than a month ago.

Cyndi and Madonna emerged at the same time. In high school, initially, all the girls loved Cyndi and all the guys (gay and str8) went for Madonna. Then the girls took notice that boys liked slutty Madonna -- that was the birth of the "Madonna-wannabe."

She didn't evolve, she stayed stuck in the same image and persona. Madonna knew she had to adapt.

Cyndi was We Are The World's MVP, in my opinion. I never liked the track, but she sold the hell out of her line in the bridge ("Well well well, let's realize that a change can only come...") . All those famous people participating, and hers is the line I remember best.

She always seemed a just a bit old, even when Girls just wanna have fun came out. Her fashion sense, though kooky, seemed to have an artsy-mom vibe about it. That, and she just wasn't very cool, even at the height of her fame.

Her music declined.

And I feel like, give me a break. Cyndi followed trends musically like Madonna did, just with unsuccessful results. She’s always assimilated to the sound of pop / rock of the moment, imagery too. It just didn’t work.

Her album of standards in 2003 even went in line with pop singers doing standards / songbooks. Didn’t Bette Midler and someone else do the same thing the same year? She did the most traditional karaoke cash grab songs you could imagine.

I’m not knocking her but she failed to maintain her finger on the pop pulse. And that’s the difference between her and Madonna.

R29 She went from selling 6 million an album to under 500k in a 6 year timeframe, that’s going down the shitter.

If multiplatinum to gold or not quite gold is the standard, a lot of '80s superstars' careers went down the shitter. Prince. Bruce. George M. Tina. Sting. Lionel. Even Madge fell off eventually. Maybe sometimes it happens in six years and other times it's a slower erosion, but once you scale the heights, it's hard to stay there.

I think even now she admits the WWF shit was a huge mistake.

Novelty act, like Tiny Tim or the Singing Nun.

Sounded fine here.

During Cher’s “Final Tour” (at the peak of Believe 1999-2000), Cyndi opened for her (at least in NYC where I saw the show). Imagine that, Wild Orchid (featuring Fergie) and Lauper opening for Cher.

Fregué was an unknown but I definitely thought back then that it was a big step down for Cundí. She enjoyed it and so did her fans.

She had three songs that still had airplay now and are classics, that's way more most singers can say

Really OP? Is this now a 4 times a year thread, or bi-monthly???

She won a fucking Tony! Madonna would lick Cyn's asshole dry for that.

[quote]She won a fucking Tony!

OMG! Who knew she was so fucking special???

Doesn't Boyd Gaines have like 15 of those?

R37 I, respectfully, question your ear for music. Have watched the recording of that song? Her voice was so screechy, Michael - one of the writers/producers of the song (I think) did a double take. What you heard later was production. All the so-called rockers and punk artists on the song had literally screeched their vocal cords off... And were over-produced later. But it's sound/music I guess.

Michael Jackson had the sweetest voice. And Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder's ad-libs and portions of the song were the best. Lionel Richie's opening was so soothing. But no, let's go for the screecher whose lines one could barely make out for all that caterwauling!

Absolutely no ear or even taste for music! Respectfully, of course.

Even Phil Collins sang her own song better and gave it more gravitas. The screeching, lawd!

^^^ *Michael Jackson (one of the writers/producers)

Wasn’t she already in her early 30s by the time she found mainstream success with SSU? Madonna was 26 when LAV made her a household name and by today’s standards 26 is already over the hill.

R50 illustrates that no matter what you post, there's a possibility that someone will be a twat over it. "Respectfully, of course."

My ear for music is fine. If I were deciding who made the most beautiful sound (itself subjective), which I wasn't, it would probably be Ingram. But in pop records, and in this case a pop record with an activist bent, the most mellifluous tone isn't everything.

In fairness to the others, I will say that when the lines were being divvied up, Lauper was given an advantageous position at the crest of the bridge. She was in a good place to bring an urgent quality, and she did it well.

What's a Tony?