Cyndi Lauper @ Talking Stick Resort

Watch enough infomercials for Time-Life '80s compilations, and you'll come to this conclusion: Some albums are of their time because they were released at the peak of a particular trend, and some albums were a trend. She's So Unusual, Cyndi Lauper's famous debut, is so important to our conception of...

By Dan Moore

June 20, 2013

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Watch enough infomercials for Time-Life '80s compilations, and you'll come to this conclusion: Some albums are of their time because they were released at the peak of a particular trend, and some albums were a trend. She's So Unusual, Cyndi Lauper's famous debut, is so important to our conception of the '80s that it's hard to believe it was ever just an album. The singles fanned out in all directions, altering our expectations of ballads ("Time After Time") and pop-femininity ("Girls Just Want to Have Fun") and, well, pop onanism ("She Bop"). Even the cover launched a thousand dancing, fishnetted, less-genuine Lauper-alikes on film and TV. The genuine article comes to Scottsdale celebrating the 30th anniversary of She's So Unusual, which, more than 10 albums later, continues to define her career. That's the kind of thing that might drive a lesser artist crazy. But when an album's defined an entire decade, it's kind of hard to avoid. At Talking Stick Resort, she'll be performing the record in its entirety, which is good news for fans of, say, "Yeah Yeah," but otherwise will probably sound a lot like a typical Cyndi Lauper show. For good reason.

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