Singer and songwriter Cyndi Lauper is an icon of 1980s pop music, with hits such as Girls Just Want To Have Fun and Time After Time. With her multi-colored hair and second-hand clothes, she became a mainstay on cable music television network, MTV. A more sophisticated, mature Cyndi Lauper has just released At Last, her new collection of pop standards and cover tunes from the 1960s and '70s.
On the cover of her new album, Cyndi Lauper is shown, dressed in a black designer evening gown, emerging from a submarine in New York Harbor with the moon and city skyline behind her in the night sky. The new image signals a change in musical direction for the singer, whose quirky pop songs helped her sell more than 40 million albums. Her voice is just as powerful and emotional as it was 20 years ago.
Cyndi offers her own description of At Last: "This album is a collection of stories. They are the stories of the people I was watching while I grew up. I've been collecting them since I was 5 [years old]. They are about love and loss and strife. I had hoped that one day I could tell their stories, and, at last, I am," she says.
Cyndi interprets pop standards such as La Vie En Rose and If You Go Away, and duets with the legendary Tony Bennett on Makin' Whoopee. She also puts her own twist on songs from the 1960s and '70s, such as Dionne Warwick's Walk On By, and Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers. Cyndi Lauper's update of Until You Come Back To Me, a 1973 hit for Aretha Franklin, features co-writer Stevie Wonder on harmonica.
Cyndi Lauper sees her At Last album as a way to bring a more organic sense to the music business. "I wanted to make sure that I put a little sense of humanity back in the world that's surgically enhanced I mean the music, not the people," she says. "That's what I was born to do here, and that's what I feel is my path. That's something I can contribute."
David Massey, an executive at Daylight/Epic, Cyndi's record label, comments, "I believe that Cyndi is due for a major comeback. This standards-oriented repertoire will open Cyndi up to a whole new audience who are unaware of her huge vocal power, and will consolidate her base internationally."
Cyndi Lauper recently debuted songs from her new album during four sold-out shows at a sophisticated jazz and cabaret venue in her hometown of New York City.