Cyndi Lauper wants to see YOU over at her main page, baby... A Night to Dismember Overall Album Score: 6.6 out of 10 I used to hate this album like I hate world poverty, but world poverty has gotten so horrible within the past few years that this album's status has increased considerably........ Well, it's a slight improvement over True Colors anyway. I used to think this was the devil's poop-pit compared to True Colors. The one main development here is the more varied song production that was absent without leave in the previous album. Although still consider this a major step down from the quirky production standards of She's So Unusual. "I Drove All Night" has a nice string sound to open the festivities, there's some xylophone on "Primitive" and even some sitar on "A Night to Remember." Unfortunately, these production improvements don't necessary create better songs. For the most part, they're pretty stale and uninteresting. At least I can say that they're not so worthy of my endless wrath... At least Lauper orders this album correctly. The first two songs are the best ones. There, now it's not so awkward, and be sure to feel free to turn off the album after they're done playing, and it'll save you the trouble of listening to anything else! Unfortunately there's not a decent number of highlights in the middle. "Unconditional Love" is an OK but faceless ballad. "A Night to Remember" is sort of likeable except it's quite sterile... Is this the best she has to offer other than the two opening tracks? Geez, Lauper's just not delivering the goods. Now let's talk about the considerable number of bombs. I don't even know what "Like a Cat" is supposed to be doing. Everything about it is clunky and awkward. I'm not sure if Lauper thought she was being experimental or clueless. "Dancing With a Stranger" is nothing but a Paula Abdul clone... C'mon! We don't want Cyndi Lauper to be Paula Abdul! We want her to be Cyndi Lauper!! I could go on, but I think you get the picture... And there's also track reviews... I wish I could have kinder words to say about this release, because there was at least some attempt to make this more interesting than the average '80s album. Despite the effort, Lauper forgot about what's most important in pop music: melody. Overall Album Score: 6.6 out of 10 (I just wish that Lauper would write better melodies. She's aiming to be a bit more quirky like her debut album, but I FREAKING MISS THE MELODIES!!) Average Song Score: 6.9 (She's just not delivering the goods. Not at all.) Album Tilt: 6.0 (It's disorienting! What is Lauper trying to do? What does she want to be??) Artist Rating: 7.0 (I'm inclined to be nice. It's for the effort.) Track Reviews I Drove All Night 8/10 Already this album is better than True Colors. Now I'm expecting Lauper to adhere to her Uphill Theory, and I should expect some real masterpieces after this!!! OK, that's really wishful thinking, because I'm already aware what comes after this. Generally speaking, this is a thunderous opener with some interesting bits in the production. It begins with a synth-string loop that manages to draw me in. The rest of the song is also well produced with some really thunderous sounds and lovely synthscapes. Lauper's vocals are actually allowed to soar above everything else. Primitive 8/10 A nice Madonna bass-line starts off the festivities and some Peter Gabriel xylophones are imported to bring in some textures. (What's this? Interesting production??? Yeah... pretty much.) The general problem with this song is the lack of really memorable hooks, but there's enough to keep this entertaining enough for at-the-moment listening. There are a non-cheesy saxophone solo imported for the instrumental interlude. This is very '80s, but it's not so slight. Also a fortunate aspect about Lauper is she's not a jerk like Madonna is. Trust me, that's a valuable quality. My First Night Without You 7/10 Hm... I don't know about this one. It starts out very awkward with just a simple bassline, primitive percussion and Lauper whispering some words. The Lauper starts singing and the instrumentation pipes up. The instrumental ideas throughout are proving that Lauper wanted to be relatively interesting, but it really didn't work here. Part of the problem is the melody isn't very catchy. Well, Lauper's singing her heart out, and that's worth something at least... Like a Cat 6/10 ...touched for the very first time? Well a virgin cat... Um, let's talk about Lauper now. This is another song that seems like Lauper thought she was being experimental. But really the song structure is just clumsy and I really have no idea what Lauper was actually thinking. It starts out with a quirky groove that gets tiring rather quickly. Whenever the chorus decides to pipes up, it always manages to catch me off-guard. What's worse, the melody doesn't interest me whatsoever. Geez, Cyndi! I'm glad you're no longer adhering to '80s cliches, but I wanted something a tad more ... um ... accessible. Heading West 6.5/10 The chorus is pretty hooky (and I swear they're pretty much the same hooks left over from "Primitive"), but the verses are not. There's a nice twinkly xylophone playing around in the background to give it some nice texture, and I like those dark string sounds. ... Dear Cyndi, I'm trying to like this song. Really I am. A Night to Remember 7/10 This is a little more normal and straight-ahead, but it's an awfully sterile pop song. The melody isn't hooky whatsoever, but they were at least trying with a few interesting chord changes. Lauper's performance isn't anything special. All of that said, I have difficulty writing-off this song, because it features a sitar solo. Unconditional Love 7.5/10 The melody's not bad and the production is basically normal with some less-than-generic instrumentals. Lauper's performance is nice but it's pretty faceless. The general problem with this song is it has such a choppy and robotic flow to it. It's hard to get into a ballad when it's bobbing uncontrollably in such a jerky fashion. Insecurious 7/10 What's this? Electric guitar licks? That's a pretty nice opener. What follows is a slightly catchy '80s pop number. Again, the problem is that it's so faceless and inconsequential that it's difficult to even want to give a damn about it. It could have used a catchier groove. Dancing With a Stranger 6/10 Here's some late '80s dance-funk, and you might have hoped that Paula Abdul would have cornered the market on that. There's absolutely no charm to this song whatsoever (thanks to the genre) and the only redeeming factor it could have is a catchy melody. Um, no it falls short there as well. At least they could have written some better chord progressions... I Don't Want to Be Your Friend 6.5/10 This reminds me of one of those boring ballads I heard on Melissa Etheridge's debut album, but the song production is a tad more busy and interesting. It's only a tad more interesting, though, because this is a phenomenally boring. She adds on some vocals by the end, which helps make it a little more likable. Kindred Spirit 7/10 An old folk cover with some pops and hisses as if it were played from an old record player. OK. E-mail me here. I dare you.

All reviews are copyrighted by the author, Michael Lawrence. His boss's boss is fat.