While Cyndi Lauper\u2019s second album True Colors<\/i> had failed to reach the dizzying heights of her debut LP She\u2019s So Unusual<\/i>, it had earned her two hit singles and the following tour had also boosted sales figures into a more respectable bracket from her label\u2019s point of view. When the time came for Lauper to begin work on her third LP, however, said label opened up the long-running argument with the singer as to who was best able to write songs that showed her off the best to the ever fickle record-buying public.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Following the success of \u201cTrue Colors\u201d on the singles chart, Epic paired Lauper with that song\u2019s creators, Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, who by now had a decent strike-rate on the singles charts (most notably for Cyndi\u2019s main adversary Madonna, for whom the pair wrote \u201cLike A Virgin\u201d). It was thought that by working so closely with the pair, Lauper wouldn\u2019t move too far away from the hit-making sounds of the day. Whatever the plan was, though, something backfired because A Night To Remember<\/i> died a pretty fast death, posting very disappointing sales figures and only sporting one truly great song.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Lauper\u2019s voice was a little deeper and more alluring here than it was one her previous efforts. She used this to great effect for that hit song, the sex-charged \u201cI Drove All Night,\u201d which remains one of her finest moments on record to date. Dance cuts like \u201cPrimitive\u201d (musically, the backing track is a direct lift from \u201cLike A Virgin\u201d) and \u201cLike A Cat\u201d are okay songs, but neither one is anything but just average at best. \u201cUnconditional Love\u201d is the one attempt at a serious love song\/ballad for the record and again, it isn\u2019t the worst song that Lauper has recorded, but it is a long way from the greats like \u201cTime After Time\u201d and \u201cTrue Colors.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cMy First Night Without You\u201d is more up-tempo and better for it, as is the decent groove of the title track. \u201cHeading West,\u201d \u201cInsecurious\u201d and \u201cI Don\u2019t Want To Be Your Friend\u201d should have all been shelved and replaced with more assured, powerful songs. With Lauper having success covering Prince and Marvin Gaye on her first two albums, I can\u2019t think why someone didn\u2019t suggest throwing a couple of covers into the mix here, as it surely would have lightened the dark and heavy-hearted mood that Lauper was intent on creating here. This is, of course, in direct contrast to the colorful and exciting photo that was used for the album\u2019s cover.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Much has been made of the dreaded \u201cthird album,\u201d and if ever there was a textbook example of how not to go about it, A Night To Remember<\/i> (or as Cyndi refers to it these days, A Night To Forget<\/i>) would be the one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":31917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8234],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-43645","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-cyndi-lauper","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43645"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}