Cyndi's career is a very good example of industry forces stifling a great talent. She's just made a dance album because Sony thought it was a good idea (although she won't admit that), and in 1989 she made the A Night To Remember album with the same company putting a metaphorical gun to her head, and telling her to make a safe album working with all the standard hitmakers of the day. The result was an album that had almost no trace of her personality on it. This song blatantly takes it's groove from "Billie Jean", but is nowhere near as good.

Sad thing is, this album was her last mainstream one. It's no wonder she's so underestimated if this is people's last memory of her. On the plus side, she has great hair here (I think she looked her best in 1989), and redeems the song with a good performance. So anyway, sit back and watch a giant crouching down low. Very low.

This is truly a great performance from her. Thank you for sharing , midnightmover!

Sounds like billie jean from the Bad tour in Yokahoma

This concert was fucking huge. The whole thing is up on Youtube. Looks like at least 90,000 people there. Damn. Check out this GJWHF with a reggae section at the end and a snippet of "He's a Rebel" with a lesbian lyric change.

Good song! She was in town summer of 1989 promoting this album and the radio station was taking calls for her. I talked with her for a few minutes, and she was just about the sweetest thing. I was 16 at the time so asked her dumb shit like why her hair wasn't orange anymore. I'm sure she'd been asked that a bajillion times, and she just said she got tired of it.

I told her I loved the album and I Drove All Night and she said, "Well thank you. You're just the sweetest thing."

RipHer2Shreds said:

You bastard! You spoke to Cyndi! Just kidding. You're lucky.

The album sucked though, and this song is very average. It's much better in this performance because of the live band and the cool look of the thing, but really this was a bad time for her. Cyndi herself doesn't have anything good to say about that album now. It wasn't really her.
[Edited 7/9/08 12:42pm]

If we could ever somehow manage to loose the hold that money has on the music biz, that's when we'll have more music with personality. Either that, or more people will continue to go to indie labels.

RipHer2Shreds said:

I met Cyndi on the corner of 72nd and Bway here in NYC.. I was with one of my homies and she walked right pass us and i said do you know who that was ? and he was like who ? I said that was Cyndi Lauper and he was like no it wasn't, so we ran ahead of her and turned around to walk pass her again and she called us on it.... She was like you guys are not fooling anybody and she smiled and said hello asked our names and said it was nice to meeet us

midnightmover said:

I thought this one was:

Cinnie said:

That album didn't even make the Top 100 in America. I never even heard about it at the time. By that point Sony wasn't pushing her with any enthusiasm.

midnightmover said:

Her performance on David Letterman at the time really struck a chord with me. She did "That's What I Think".
That seems to be as much promotion as most artists would get nowadays, eh?

Cinnie said:

THAT'S a GREAT album! but what the hell is she singing on the clip? she sounds dreadful.

Milty said:

Hat Full of Stars is definitely a classic.

As for the song in the clip you're better off not knowing. It's called "Primitive" and it's from her A Night To Remember album. If you want to envision the album just think of every typical cliche of the time, put it together and hey presto! There's the album. Dianne Warren song? Check. Steinberg-McKelly song? Check. Tacky synthesizers? Check. Cute love lyrics? Check. It's all there, with nothing to disturb the atmosphere of averageness.

As for why she's singing so weird in the verses here, my guess is she was just trying to be avant garde to make this generic song more interesting.