LogFAQs > #970377069

Sorry this took me so long...

Seanchan posted...

It somewhat bizarrely feels too long to me, despite only being 10 songs and 38.5 minutes. There were quite a few songs where I love the intro and the first 30 seconds, then that fades and I look and there's still another 45 seconds of the song left. There's always a lot of repetition in pop music but it just grated on me here. Part of me wonders if this album was stretched out at all to hit some sort of minimum length.

As much as I love this album, I don't necessarily disagree with this critique - but usually I feel that the extra time lends the songs in question a certain improvisational, almost freeform quality that I appreciate.

On that note, and somewhat ironically given its extensive employment of synths placing it firmly in the 80s pop sphere, She's So Unusual never once feels manufactured to me. Lauper (who landed several solo record deal offers for her voice in her Blue Angel days) naturally sings her own case here by letting her nerves and rawness show at times. But this is an album that lives up to its characteristically striking cover-art all around, from its typically well-written and at times even quietly revolutionary lyrics to soundscapes that reward exploration in unexpected ways.

Time After Time: Force me to name a favorite song over and over again, and chances are you have my continual choice right here, time after time if you will. I don't feel I could really do justice to all the reasons why, in fact.

All Through the Night: In Lauper's hands, it feels like it's (fairly autobiographically) about being young and having dreams and wanting to reach for them together with another, a theme which Lauper illuminates with astonishing earnestness, sans a hint of sentimentality. That helps make for my favorite ever vocal performance, and also my single favorite song to sing along to.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun: Its infusions of motown and reggae influences help musically outline the inclusively feminist point that its famous video pictorially reinforced - and, of course, there's Lauper's sheer exuberance and enthusiasm in serving up her message. There's no song I personally prefer dancing to, and nothing I'd rather have taken up as my topmost anthem of self-expression.

When You Were Mine: Raetsel's comment covers pretty much everything I would have mentioned.

She Bop: Oddly enough, its subject matter wasn't actually originally Lauper's idea. However, her teasing, playful vocal manner stands as proof positive of how she latched onto its perspective to make for the most purely anarchic fun here.

Money Changes Everything: This jaunty, melodica-enlivened opener really showcases the sheer range of Lauper's influences, from Elvis Presley to Billie Holiday (on her vocals) and The Police to R&B in general (on the music) - and also the way she turns them into something new.

Witness: Laupers performance brings an on-point combination of uneasy emotion and exuberant energy to bear, powering what could have been a throwaway album track and belying its somewhat happenstance inspiration.

Yeah Yeah: I have a persistent soft spot for this off-kilter closer, which feels like its the result of everyone Lauper worked with asking her to include a duet, to which she agreed - in characteristic fashion. The results: a classically early 80s synthesized-sounding male vocal deliberately contrasted with an always-alive star in the making.

I'll Kiss You: Catchy and generally fun, but trying for soulful synth made its music so aggressively stereotypically 80s even I can tell, and its lyrics have aged poorly in more ways than one.