Wiki
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Release Date
August 1986
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Length
10 tracks
True Colors is the second studio album by American singer Cyndi Lauper, released on September 15, 1986. The album produced several commercially successful singles as "True Colors", "Change of Heart", and "What's Going On" reached the top twenty of the Billboard Hot 100, with the first two becoming top 5 hits. The album was produced by Lauper herself together with Lennie Petze. The singer also composed all the songs of the album.
Upon its release, the album received generally positive reviews from music critics. The album earned Lauper several awards and accolades, including two nominations at the 29th Annual Grammy Awards. True Colors peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 chart. The album is Lauper's second best-selling album with over 7 million copies sold worldwide
Lauper said that the songs of the album are a way to say: "Have the courage of your convictions and love yourself a little", and "not to be so hard on yourself". In addition to composing all the songs on the album, the singer also produced it. In her autobiography the singer says that she initially planned that Rick Chertoff, who produced She's So Unusual, would produce what would become her second album, however, the experience with him was problematic and she changed her mind, likewise she refused to produce the album with Rob Hyman since he was affiliated with Chertoff. The album was then produced by her and Lennie Petze.
The title song, written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, has been covered by many other artists, and was used as the theme song for the 1988 Summer Olympics, the 2003 Rugby World Cup and for Kodak cameras and film.
In 2010, the song was also featured on the soundtrack of Sex and the City 2. True Colors was re-issued in a Japanese exclusive limited edition box set 11-track digitally remastered CD album
The album received favorable revies from music critics. Eugene Chadbourne from AllMusic website gave the album three and a hal stars out of five and wrote that while the album is "ambitious" and "some of the stretches really pay off" some of its aspects "date badly" like the "highly reverberated and artificial sounding drums and keyboards" which "were really popular at the time". He conclude that despite those problems "there really wasn't that much music recorded by this artist during her most popular period, so fans will no doubt want to own it all." Robert Christgau gave the album a B MINUS and wrote that the first side of the LP consist of "cheap sentiment" and "disheartening" and that "the second isn't much more than a relief". He finalized the review writing that "girls just want to have money–and no fun changes everything". Jimmy Guterman from Rolling Stone magazine gave the album a favorable review and wrote that Lauper's voice "sounds more comfortable at any given moment on True Colors than she did on all of She's So Unusual" and that the album "seems to indicate her extreme ease in her new surroundings" and that "she's found a new sense of peace — or at least she's heading in that direction" but he conclude that "her uneasiness gave her early work much of its spark; what places True Colors a notch below her debut is that Cyndi Lauper just isn't that unusual anymore."
In the United States, True Colors has been certified double platinum by the RIAA and peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 albums chart. It topped the Australian chart for four weeks and, in Japan, outsold She's So Unusual, although that was not the case in most countries. The album produced the singles "True Colors" (No. 1 Billboard Hot 100), "Change of Heart" (No. 3), "What's Going On" (No. 12), and "Boy Blue" (No. 71). Each single had a music video although the video for "Boy Blue" was just a live performance from her Zenith concert in Paris. According to Lauper's official website, the album was certified 4× Platinum in Australia and Platinum in Italy. The album sold 7 million copies worldwide
Cyndi Lauper – lead vocals, arrangements, backing vocals (4, 6, 7, 10), jam box (7), Emulator voice (10)
Jeff Bova – keyboards (1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10), arrangements (1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10)
Peter Wood – keyboards (2, 4, 5, 6), arrangements (2, 4, 6, 9), additional keyboards (3), synthesizer bass (7)
Jon Goldberger – sound effects (7)
Nile Rodgers – guitars (1)
John McCurry – guitars (2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10)
Rick Derringer – guitars (5, 8)
Adrian Belew – guitars (6), arrangements (6)
Robert Holmes – guitars (6)
Neil Jason – bass guitar (2, 4, 6, 9)
Jimmy Bralower – LinnDrum programming, arrangements (1, 2, 5, 7-10), percussion (4, 7), jam box (4, 10)
Anton Fig – drums (2, 6)
Stephen Broughton Lunt – arrangements (3)
Lennie Petze – arrangements (3, 5, 6, 7, 10), percussion (7), backing vocals ( 10)
The Bangles – backing vocals (1)
Billy Joel – backing vocals (2)
Angela Clemmons-Patrick – backing vocals (4, 5)
Ellie Greenwich – backing vocals (5)
Aimee Mann – backing vocals (8)
Pee Wee Herman – guest operator (9
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