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116 of 120 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very solid Lauper collection, and finally, The Goonies!, June 10, 2003
When I heard that another Cyndi Lauper best-of album was going to be released, my first question was whether this new collection would measure up to her previous best-of collections, especially 12 Deadly Cyns...And Then Some. Well I can tell you that it certainly does. Essential Cyndi Lauper, in my opinion, comes the closest to being the ideal Cyndi collection available. But before I go on, I thought it would be helpful to first give a track listing (taken from her official website) since there doesn't seem to be one here:1) Girls Just Want To Have Fun
2) Money Changes Everything
3) Who Let In The Rain
4) She Bop
5) Time After Time
6) I Drove All Night
7) Hat Full Of Stars
8) Change Of Heart
9) Sisters Of Avalon
10) All Through The Night
11) True Colors
12) When You Were Mine
13) Unhook The Stars
14) The Goonies 'R' Good Enough The first thing I noticed about this collection is that it offers *all 6* of the smash hits from She's So Unusual. That alone is a major plus when it comes to a Cyndi Lauper collection. I would have liked to see "What's Going On" on this disc instead of "Change Of Heart," as I think that song better represents the True Colors album. But oh well, "True Colors" is here, and that's the biggest hit from her sophmore release. Yet again, only "I Drove All Night" is included from Cyndi's highly underrated A Night To Remember album. The powers-that-be still think that this song is the only worthy one off that album. But we know better, don't we? Another thing worth mentioning about this collection is that it offers songs from both Hat Full Of Stars and Sisters Of Avalon. Whether you agree or disagree that the songs here representing those albums are the best selections, it's nice to see some songs from Cyndi's lesser-known (but still great) albums here. And of course, my review wouldn't be complete without saying that "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" has FINALLY been included in an official domestic best-of collection. Until now, one had to spend quite a lot of money to get this song from the import collections or the (also pricy, not to mention hard to find) Goonies soundtrack. The inclusion of "The Goonies" here will surely make a lot of Cyndi fans quite pleased. I think it's a tragedy that "Hole In My Heart (All The Way To China)" is again not included in a Cyndi Lauper best-of compilation. If it had been, I would have given this album 5 stars without a second thought. So if you want that song, you'll need to find the Japanese version of 12 Deadly Cyns or A Night To Remember: it's a bonus track on both of those albums. All in all though, this Cyndi Lauper collection doesn't disappoint and delivers. Highly recommended.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent music, but a disappointing collection., February 11, 2004
Cyndi Lauper is wonderful. That's a given. And when I heard this CD was coming out, I was very excited. I was finally going to have all of Cyndi Lauper's hits together on one CD! Well, I gave Epic too much credit, and was therefore disappointed when I received this collection. Where is "What's Going On," which was a #12 pop hit in 1986? And where are the excellent minor hits "Hole In My Heart," "My First Night Without You" and "Boy Blue?" Of course, Lauper's Top-10 hits are here, but Epic passed up an excellent opportunity to produce a CD containing all the hits. Also, why were "Sisters of Avalon" and "Unhook The Stars" (nonhit tracks) included and "You Don't Know" and "Ballad of Cleo and Joe" (both hits on the dance charts in the mid '90s) not on this disc?
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Can't stop messing with the Danger Zone, September 7, 2007
Cyndi Lauper is one of those eighties singers whose talent was modest but personality was overwhelming. It was what made "She's So Unusual" so brilliant; Cyndi was so totally outside the mold that everything on it quaked with the stellar portrayal of the artist as a young woman. From the classic anthem "Girls Just Wanna have Fun" to the emotional bulls-eye of "Time After Time," Cyndi and all her friends established the pattern that would follow for the rest of her career. Cyndi found songs to match her one-of-a-kind voice and would deliver them with style.
That she had a knack for plucking gems from obscurity also helped. The Brains' apocryphal "Money Changes Everything" is one such example, ditto for "True Colors's" rocking "Change of Heart." She was such a colorful fusion of styles and personality that the singles on this "Essential" collection still often sound buoyant and alive even now. It was around the time of "A Night to Remember" and "Hatful Of Stars" that Cyndi's efforts to sound serious got the better of her. On "Twelve Deadly Cyns and Then Some," Cyndi wisely chose to include "Sally's Pigeons" (co-written with Mary Chapin Carpenter, of all people), where the emotional heft matched the ambition, where the title track here didn't.
That ambition also lead to Cyndi's activism. "True Colors" has become something of a gay anthem, a call to recognize yourself as the person you are. It became the Nom De'Tour of Cyndi's summer 2007 tour for the Human Rights Campaign (along with Debbie Harry and Erasure, among others), and her tireless work on behalf of the Matthew Sheppard Foundation and other causes. Her timeless music couples with her work for the future.
Her attempt to broaden the style works OK on "Sisters of Avalon" and "Unhook The Stars," but I would have happily traded them (or "When You Were Mine") in for "What's Going On." All is forgiven however, by finally finding "The Goonies R Good Enough" on a proper US Cyndi Lauper CD. A quickie knock-off to a Steven Spielberg screaming kids movie, it is all the things great about Cyndi's hits; melodic, energetic and sing-along-quirky. It makes "The Essential Cyndi Lauper" the best single disc collection of Cyndi you can get without shelling out for pricey double-disc imports.
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