1001 Albums Summary

This album screams 80s: a record where synths and guitars blare in unison to accommodate the zany, rebellious attitude of a persona that dares people to witness and accept her as a pop icon of the century. The dare more than paid off with this one, as this record is worth all its significance just for the now-iconic "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", but it's hardly a one-song record, and there is quite a solid bit of wit and craftsmanship involved in bringing it all together. "She's So Unusual" screams progressiveness in an era that some people these days try to insist was an era of long-lost conservative values, and it is a welcome reminder that things were never as simple as that. The biggest song from this album, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", is itself a great example of that, as Lauper effectively took a song about a wayward womanizer, rewrote it to be a female empowerment party anthem, and wore it with great pride. Aside from the album's biggest hit, there is a surprisingly high amount of song covers on this album, but none of them feel derivative of the artists Lauper covers. "Money Changes Everything", "When You Were Mine", and "All Through the Night" were great picks on her side, and all fit fell into her image crafted throughout the album. She truly makes these songs her own. The all-original songs are just as high in quality, with great highlights being a beautiful melancholic love ballad "Time After Time", as well as super raunchy "She Bop", which celebrates female sexuality in a humorous manner, paired with instrumentation that sounds nigh-pornographic, adding a lot to the self-awareness on display.