Great Moments In Pop – The 80s Part 25.

This is someone who managed to go in and out of favour on a few occasions over the years, but she ended up having an impressive amount of hits that span 13 years. Cyndi Lauper is a rather quirky American singer who came on to the scene in January 1984 with “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”, which reached no. 2, and is her biggest hit single in the UK.

And some reason I remember Harry Hill doing an amusing parody of this on his comedy show which seemed to insist that he played one of the instruments on this. Next in March 1984 was “Time After Time”, which reached no. 3, and was a chart-topper in America for two weeks. In March 2002, Distant Soundz released a cover in the Garage genre that I really like too.

It was also around this time that there was supposed to be a rivalry between Cyndi and newcomer Madonna, and you had to come down on one side or the other, although I think that this was mostly exaggerated. In 1984 she won a Grammy, and in 1985 she was among the many contributors to “We Are The World” by USA For Africa, the American equivalent of Band Aid which was a Transatlantic chart-topper.

The next big hit was in September 1986 when “True Colours” reached no. 12 (and this also was a chart-topper in America for two weeks). This was later covered by Phil Collins, but you really know that you’ve made a song that has endured when the video is shown in the wrong ratio in the afternoon on That’s 80s TV or whatever it’s called. Yes.

The next success was in May 1989 when “I Drove All Night”, which was a cover of a Roy Orbison song, reached no. 7. There would be further hits after this, but only 1992’s “The World Is Stone” made the Top 20. By September 1994, Cyndi had decided to do the by now rather overused idea of taking your biggest hit single from a decade earlier and doing a remix to guarantee one final big hit.

But never being someone to do things conventionally, Cyndi had a creative twist on this, and re-recorded her hit with additional lyrics as “(Hey Now) Girls Just Want To Have Fun)”, which also promoted her greatest hits album that was released around the same time. She had yellow hair too! And this did indeed return Cyndi to the Top Ten for the first time in five years, and what also turned out to be the final time. In February 1997, her 17th and final hit single in the UK was “You Don’t Know”, which made the Top 30.