Music Find: Cyndi Lauper’s The Body Acoustic

Tonight I found myself thinking about the song True Colors by Cyndi Lauper. Actually, I’m pretty sure the song itself was written by Prince.

She’s So Unusual was the very first CD I ever had, purchased in 1985 along with our family’s very first CD player.

A very old, good friend of mine used to work in large concert venues and used Time After Time to test his sound system, claiming it to be acoustically perfect. I listened to it once on his way awesome sound system. It was pretty perfect, along with his system. I could really hear, and locate, all those different wavelengths (not a technical term, just one I use) the song moves at.

So I thought, ok, paltry digital music system that I have here on my laptop, I want to hear it right now.

I popped into MySpace (still where I go to find music) just to see if there might be a cover I liked better than her version. I know there are other versions of her stuff, including a pretty amazing ballad version of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Greg Laswell:

Anyway, I ended up downloading the album The Body Acoustic.

True Colors on this album is amazing. Gorgeous. 80s pop reconfigured to be good music. Cello. I realized as I listened to the opening bars, this is a song I learned to play on the guitar.

All Through the Night has Shaggy (a name I do not know outside of Scooby Doo, sorry) and it’s pretty damn awesome. And Money Changes Everything - is a waaaaay better song here. She has really done a fantastic job.

Even if you found her stuff too poppy in the 80s, this album is worth checking out. Even if you can’t understand why Puffy Ami Yumi is on it, look, Ani DiFranco is.

And the Puffy Ami Yumi song is Girls Just Wanna Have Fun — ska acoustic! What fun.

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