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6 Degrees Entertainment

Title - 'She's So Unusual: A 30th Anniversary Celebration'
Artist - Cyndi Lauper

In the fall of 1983, a struggling singer from Ozone Park, Queens with audacious vintage style and a riot of candy-colored hair was about to go supernova in the new MTV-dominated music scene: Cyndi Lauper. She's So Unusual was just released and it blazed with a vivid kaleidoscope of styles including new wave, pop, post-punk, girl-group Motown and reggae.

She's So Unusual: A 30th Anniversary Celebration is the ultimate tribute to one of the greatest albums of all time. Now complete with brand new caricature artwork, 3 brand new previously-unheard songs, a new essay written by Jancee Dunn and some rare and previously-unseen photos by Annie Leibovitz, She’s So Unusual: A 30th Anniversary Celebration is just perfect summer listening (as it always was, in truth).

We kick-off the pop jams with the highly-infective bouncy beats of ‘Money Changes Everything’ before heading gleefully into one of the most iconic tracks on this still-incredible-to-hear-today album, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.’ Still as vibrant a pop music song today as it was some thirty years ago, I dare you not to sing-along at some stage with the chorus!

Next up is the album filler ‘When You Were Mine,’ before we get the slow-paced, yet aged-perfectly iconic cut, ‘Time After Time.’ A track that also gets two (2) different remixes as part of the bonus tracks, Lauper’s vocals drip especially lovingly over each spoken ‘as the second hand unwinds’ lyric. This is followed by one of my favorite ever Cyndi Lauper songs, the highly-underrated (at the time) ‘She Bop.’ Relegated back in the day to her fourth single release from the album, it got slightly buried under the weight of the #1 hit singles that went before it. That said, it’s pop-funk backbeat is just so damn addictive to listen to, especially given today‘s weak musical market.

‘All Through The Night’ is yet another subdued hit from this wonderful album (I really cannot stress this fact enough) and it’s anthemic lyrics still reside within most all of us today; I can safely say. The original album then comes to a close with four basic album tracks - such as the guitar-synth treatment afforded to ‘Witness,’ the electro-funk of ‘I’ll Kiss You,’ the mixed musical bag follow-up cut to her original hit ‘He’s So Unusual,’ and then finally the fun beats of ’Yeah Yeah.’

The first of the three previously-unreleased remixes is ’Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (2013 Yolanda Be Cool)’ which simply extends the fun vibrant vibe of the original by adding in loops, skips and bass beat hops. The next is ‘Time After Time (2013 NERVO Back In Time)’ which brings a faster dance floor aspect to the slow song, before the trippy techno version of ‘Time After Time (2013 Bent Collective)’ ends this special edition release.

All in all though, I’m sorry guys, but there’s nothing special here in the extras and not what I was hoping for given that this was a 30th Anniversary disc.

BUT WAIT ... with all that said I have since come across a 2CD version of this 30th Anniversary release and it contains a whole other disc of outtakes, demos and other such never heard before exclusives!

The nine (9) previously-unreleased songs include 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Early Guitar Demo),' 'All Through the Night (1983 Rehearsal, with Studio Dialog),' 'Money Changes Everything (Demo),' and even 'Witness (Live, Boston, 1984).' So, buy THIS one if you're gonna buy one, believe me!

Reviewed by: Russell A. Trunk

www.CyndiLauper.com





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