Girls Just Want To Have Fun In Isolation Without Hazard
February 27, 2020 11:23 PM   Subscribe

Cyndi Lauper's isolated vocal track from the recording session for her classic 1983 pop song Girls Just Want To Have Fun (slyt via).

For comparison, here is the original 1979 demo version of the song by its writer Robert Hazard.
posted by fairmettle (19 comments total) 41 users marked this as a favorite
 
That was really fun, the woman has pipes! Just enough leak through to hear the song, and I love the plate reverb. And you can hear her hopping and dancing around in the booth before she starts.
Thanks!
posted by Marky at 11:38 PM on February 27, 2020 [12 favorites]


Amazing voice. I had no idea till just now that it was a cover. Thank you!
posted by greenhornet at 12:09 AM on February 28, 2020 [2 favorites]


Amazing voice. And her tiny incidental whoops are spot-on.

I hadn't realized how well this would work as an a capella piece. Would be tough to get right, and might not be the most fun for the choir.
posted by scruss at 12:56 AM on February 28, 2020 [2 favorites]


The multi voice harmonies are definitely not from the original mic. Still, amazing voice, always has been one of my favorites. Isolated tracks are thing on YouTube, most of them dubious, or boring. Still, kinda cool.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 2:22 AM on February 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


Great! Another good one is the vocal only track of Freddie Mercury and David Bowie doing "Under Pressure".
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:34 AM on February 28, 2020 [8 favorites]


Her vocal phrasing really stands out here. She has a great voice and then she uses it in very interesting ways.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:43 AM on February 28, 2020 [5 favorites]


I visited NYC for a few spring days during 84 and in my memory, it was playing everywhere all the time. Great singer and song.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:52 AM on February 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


I was 13 when this came out, and man did it seem bizarre to me! I recently read she did the vocals uncredited for the Pee-Wee's Playhouse Saturday morning show, a show I watched every week.

In 1995 I was running room service for the brand-new, bleeding-edge cool, Ian Schrager owned, Philippe Starck designed hotel in Miami Beach called Delano (not The Delano. Just "Delano").

Opening weekend, place was insane. Service elevator breaks down (it often broke down). I jump on the guest elevator to get back to the kitchen and who's there? Cyndi Lauper. I nod politely at her. She smiled at me (five-feet tall, Tweety Bird Yellow hair) and says, "This place is sooo cool!" in the most New York accent I had ever heard at that point in my life!

I have many celebrity room service stories, but that's the Cyndi Lauper room service story.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:15 AM on February 28, 2020 [25 favorites]


YT commenter: "....You can really hear why professional singers call that song Girls just wanna have lungs"
posted by thelonius at 5:22 AM on February 28, 2020 [12 favorites]


Previously on the blue, Lauper singing into an airport terminal mic with a bunch of other travelers waiting for a delayed flight.
posted by msbrauer at 5:27 AM on February 28, 2020 [14 favorites]


Obligatory link to "Taffy Butt", where Cyndi Lauper does a self-parody version of "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough"
posted by tobascodagama at 7:54 AM on February 28, 2020 [4 favorites]


The BBC did a really good radio show on True Colors
posted by jamespake at 9:05 AM on February 28, 2020


I recently read she did the vocals uncredited for the Pee-Wee's Playhouse Saturday morning show

Whoa. This is like living in a house your whole life and then one day discovering an entire room you never knew existed, even though you've walked past the doorway on your way to the bathroom every day for 35 years.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:17 AM on February 28, 2020 [8 favorites]


It's comforting to this bedroom musician to hear that amount of headphone bleed on a bonafide classic.
posted by Beardman at 9:23 AM on February 28, 2020


I think it's less headphone bleed than the isolation track was back-engineered from the song? I don't think it's the original vocal track.
posted by tavella at 9:32 AM on February 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


Most of these isolated tracks come from games like playstation's Rock Band, someone will have managed to pull out the .mp3 from the games installation folder.
posted by Lanark at 11:16 AM on February 28, 2020


tavella:"I think it's less headphone bleed than the isolation track was back-engineered from the song? I don't think it's the original vocal track."

If it were back-engineered, I wouldn't have expected to have heard the jumping around noises from 0:09 to 0:19 so clearly.
posted by mhum at 2:13 PM on February 28, 2020 [4 favorites]


The most amazing thing to me is how much melody she was able to wring out of the song that was not present in it's original version. She (or whoever did the arrangement) really inserted a lot of little hooks that made the song much more catchy. Not that the original songwriter doesn't deserve a ton of credit, but Cyndi's version is next level.
posted by ericthegardener at 3:48 PM on February 28, 2020 [2 favorites]


I want to get drunk and commit bad karaoke with Cyndi, a Roland Juno 60, an Lexicon PCM70 reverb, and the sax solo from "Maneater". Madonna is not invited to sit with us, we'll be giving her side eye across the room
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:27 PM on February 28, 2020 [2 favorites]


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