Very few debut albums have made a commercial impact like She’s So Unusual by Cyndi Lauper. Released in late 1983, it produced five hit singles, won two Grammy Awards, and has sold in the vicinity of 22 million copies to date worldwide. Rolling Stone Magazine named it to its list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time.
The album has been reissued many times and in a number of formats through the years. It has now reached its 30th anniversary and one of the ways it has been reissued is as a limited edition vinyl record album.
The sound has been remastered and is pristine. An album released on non-recycled vinyl and played on high quality stereo equipment can sound every bit as good as a CD. In many ways, vinyl is the way that many of these older albums are meant to be heard. There is a nod to the present, however, as the album comes with a free MP3 album download.
The music is the better side of 1980s pop. Songs such as “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” “Time After Time,” “She Bop,” “All Through The Night,” and “Money Changes Everything” dominated radio play lists for a couple of years. They may not have changed the course of American music, but they were smooth, energetic, and just plain fun pop creations.
The vinyl edition comes with three bonus tracks, all of which were previously unreleased. “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” (2013 Yolanda Be Cool Remix), “Time After Time” (2013 Nervo Back In Time Remix), and “Time After Time” (2013 Bent Collective Remix) are somewhat out of place as they run counterpoint to the 1980s flavor of the original album. Still, they are enjoyable modern updates of two of her classic songs.
She’s So Unusual is one of those albums that needs to be heard in its original vinyl format. So dust off the old turntable, climb aboard the time machine, and experience a part of the music world of thirty years ago.
