Cyndi Lauper - Hole in My Heart (All the Way to China)

[POP!]

Arguably the beginning of the end of her commercial pop career (and film career, if there was one) but I love it. The guitar, the wind instruments the chaotic vocal runs near the end. Just unabashed fun before she went a bit more serious and adult contemporary with the next couple of albums.

It flopped in the US (#54) and did not chart in the UK if it was even released there. But did well in some other markets (top 10 in Australia, New Zealand, Finland, and top 15 in Switzerland). They ended up scrapping the first incarnation of A Night to Remember (entitled Kindred Spirit) when the single and movie bombed and it would be released nearly one year later, which probably didn’t help matters. She still had one more transatlantic top 10 with I Drove All Night.

Still not on Spotify either!

 

[BoysForSeles]

Only heard it for first time last year, and I have all her studio albums, but I really like the Nu Wave flourishes on it.

 

[straightorbroken]

I always remember my sister (she was 17 and I was 15) saying how mortified she was when the cassette tape (!!) she was playing in her full car with friends all of a sudden had Cyndi's Hole In My Heart taped on top of whatever club anthem they had been blasting. I can't pretend I wasn't highly pleased with myself.

 

[VV]

I can't believe this and the Goonies song never charted in the UK.

 

[BoysForSeles]

^It never felt like she ever made that huge of an effort with the UK. Yes, she’d pop over for the occasional single promo it seems but tended to let everything else just take care of itself after that.

 

[POP!]

Yeah her UK chart performance was spotty at best. The obvious ones did well but She Bop, All Through the Night, Change of Heart all bombed to varying degrees, and the latter one she actually came over to promote (and filmed in the UK too). On the other hand, her 90s output would regularly pop up in the top 40, but did nothing in the US.

 

[straightorbroken]

She Bop is the biggest mystery to me, and arguably that and All Through the Night could have been re-released to promote 12 Deadly Cyns. Goonies was quite tacky in my opinion (but has grown on me), and perhaps Hole is just too frantic for those not prepared for Cyndi going full pelt.

I wonder if this nostalgic farewell tour could spark up her to collaborate again the all the main SSU cast - it would certainly be a good pitch for promotion and indeed getting a label to bite.

And it did surprise me, given her prolonged themed stop-gap tat that she wouldn't have done an 80s cover versions album - what an easy way to coast on her reputation and really deliver herself as a pop star as opposed to the baffling blues, country and acoustic sets. I don't even like At Last, but at least the artwork was gorgeous and at that point had some kind of statement that didn't feel too calculated.