Making the first album for Cyndi's discography was simple. While Madonna may have had more hits, and seemed to be a more consistent 80s and 90s pop star, Cyndi Lauper was a unique 80 pop visionary who could sell songs about sex without making that her entire personality for five years. She didn't need to constantly update her image to appeal to the MTV generation, nor did she feel the need to push taboo envelopes to garner shock value. There's nothing wrong with any of those things Madonna did them perfectly in order to keep a stranglehold on the pop diva crown, but Lauper was just herself for her entire career, and while she fell out of the spotlight for the 90s and early 21st century, she never seemed desperate to reclaim it.

She's not desperate in this era, either. She's doing her own thing, even if it seems to be somewhat unusual compared to her 80s output. I mean, unusual is what Cyndi does. It's the name of her breakthrough album.

I've tried to spread around the two main concepts that make up this album.

1.) There are still some very 80s tracks worthy of being in her discography, even if they weren't the powerhouse hits from She's So Unusual.

2.) She put out a country album called Detour. Is it great country music? I don't know. I have a very specific type of country that I'm willing to listen to, and some of these songs fall into that category. I think they're worth your time.

1. We're going to start off country. Very much pre-1980s country. The classic, slow Patsy Cline style country. It's shocking how well Lauper's voice falls into that groove. Begging To You is just that sweet, generically lyriced love song with some soft fiddle riffs, that sound really 60s or 70s country to me.

2. Moving into the more modern, somewhat mean-spirited country, Vince Gill joins Cyndi for a duet that wouldn't seem out of place in the 1980s Muppet Show. You're The Reasons Our Kids Are Ugly is one of those we love each other, even though our relationship is complicated songs that seem like Jim Henson or Shel Silverstein could have written them, as opposed to Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. Lauper's delivery is more subdued here than in the first track, but it kind of has to be to keep from stealing the spotlight from Vince's limited range.

3. Back to mid-century we go, Lauper lets us know I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart. This is more Dolly Parton than Patsy Cline. This is another song that seems like it would be at home on a kids show from sometime before the 80s. It's got a nice little guitar solo broken up by Cyndi using her So Unusual voice to say "Yippee-yi-yay" in the background. Oh, and Jewel yodels on this track. Why not?

4. Ok, let's take a break from the country and go back to Lauper's signature 80s pop ballad style. Who Let In The Rain has the haunting synth organ and minimal percussion leading you into the chorus, where the bass arrives, welcomes the drums, and we start to get a subdued New Wave classic. Something Ric Ocasek might have penned for The Cars. But it ends with a very Tina Turnerish belted fade out.

5. We get a little 90s pop dancy with Sisters Of Avalon, the closes Lauper ever gets to recording an Alanis Morissette song. Her voice waivers in a way I don't remember her using anywhere else in the discography. 

6. What's 80ser than The Goonies? Cyndi Lauper singing the theme song, The Goonies R Good Enough? Yea. I don't remember this song at all. But it's so Cyndi. This probably belongs on She's So Unusual but I didn't remember it, and it makes for a fun retro song on this collection.

7. We're back to the country for the title track. Detour is another fiddley country song. This seems really Johnny Cash to me. It's very speak-country with that twinge of harmony to it, and then a wonderfully simple, yet beautiful harmony during the chorus. Man, I would love to hear Cyndi cover an entire Johnny Cash album. That's going on my musical bucket list.

8. Night Life falls into that chasm between country and Jimmy Buffet tropical soft rock. Slow piano, crooning, soft fiddles, Willie Nelson. All you need for a cool night on a Florida porch, sipping something whiskeyed or, I don't know, vanilla-esque. Something slightly off and delicious in its inappropriateness. It's a very sedated duet.

9. We get the danciness back for Unhook The Stars, which would esaily be the B-side to "Sisters Of Avalon". There's a very country bassline, but everything else is late 80s/early 90s Lillith Fair pop.

10. Heartaches By The Numbers  is very much a prototypical country song but with Lauper returning to her Patsy Cline voice. It's gorgeous and, so far, the toe tappingest of her country songs. 

11. The best title on the album, unquestionably, is Funnel Of Love. Is it country? Is it 90s "alternative" rock? Is it neitherly both? Is it a 50s throwback? There's a lot going on in this simple sounding song.

12. Time for a Lauper classic. I Drove All Night is actually a Roy Orbison song, but Lauper released it first, as a single, and it's perfect. Another very new-wave Cars-y track that's also, somehow, uniquely Cyndi Lauper.

13. We close off the album with a bookend. We began with Lauper channeling Patsy Cline's style, so we end on a classic Patsy Cline cover. I have always loved the original I Fall To Pieces, and Lauper elevates it without altering it very much. It's just such a beautiful, simple sounding love song. It's a great closer.

There are two things at fault for me posting a Jimmy Buffet discography.

1.) Famed poet, and generally good human, Sam Mercer posted a confession that they'd reached the point in life where they found themselves enjoying Jimmy Buffet.

2.) Two days before my body imploded in 2019, and I had to refigure my way back into my life, my mother, her husband, and I went out for a day of minigolf and dinner just outside of Universal Studios. Dinner was at Margaritaville. Despite the fact that I hadn't been cognizant of hearing a Jimmy Buffet song since 1995 (I'm sure I heard snippets here and there in groceries store and from passing cars), I knew every lyric of every song that played while we ate. And they were all, of course, Jimmy Buffet songs.

I will forever know all of them, even when riddled with dementia and confused about my husband's name.

This, I think will be a two disc journey. Possibly, a third? There are songs past Jimmy's greatest hits that I'm familiar with, and enjoy, but there are now 28 years of his music that I haven't yet been exposed to, and I, therefore, can't tell you whether or not I enjoy it. Time will tell.

But here is the album of songs that I can never forget. Whether I can blame the jukebox where I went to high school, the coworker who played Songs You Know By Heart non-stop in the summer of 1993, the coworker that convinced me to go to a Jimmy Buffet concert in 1994, or my grandfather who used to play the eight tracks of some of Buffet's 70s albums when we were on his boat (natch).

1. What, did you think I was going to start out with "Margaritaville"? Nah. We'll get there. This is the ridiculous song where Jimmy Buffet plays guitars and sings like he always sings, but when he gets to the chorus, people put their hands together over their heads to resemble shark Fins and move them to the left and the right, as if it was a dance. Look, most old white people can't clap on rhythm, and this is at close as most of them get to dancing. Let them have this.

2. I think this is the only cover on the album but Brown Eyed Girl is one of those few songs that is definitively associated with both the original artist, Van Morrison, and a particular artist, in this case Buffet, who didn't slow the tempo down or speed it up, didn't change any of the lyrics, just included some steel drums at the beginning and end, and that somehow also made it his song. I don't know how these things happen, how is "Smooth Criminal" so closely associated with both Michael Jackson and Sum 41? 

3. Our first ballad on the album comes in on a slow harmonica. A Pirate Looks At Forty is a beautiful boat ballad. I don't have any snark for this. Like most of his famous slow songs, it borders on country while still having his distinctive tropic Florida flair.

4. Drunk people screaming is a good way to power out of the last track and into the very silly The Weather Here, I Wish You Were Beautiful. Right near the beginning of the song, Buffet pronounces mosquitoes in the most puzzlingly obvious ways I've ever heard. Like they're parasitical charcoal from Texas. If you asked me what this song is about at any point in my life, I wouldn't be able to tell you, but if you start playing it, I'll be able to sing along with every word. Somehow.

5. He might not be able to pronounce mosquitoes but at least he sings Manana properly. He's probably helped more white boomers learn how to properly say this word than Duolingo. This is a sweet take on the Don't Leave Me song that every balladeer rocker or country artist wrote in the 70s and 80s. At one point, he tells the band to make the song Reggae, and they are about as successful as Sting or UB40 on that front.

6. If you're ever at one of Buffet's Margaritaville restaurants, and you hear the opening strums of Volcano, be prepared for the sirens to go off, for the drunk Parrotheads to start chanting like they're at a WWE live show, and for "lava" to pour out of the faux volcano, and into the Vat of Margarita that lives behind the bar. I'm sure the rumors that the lava come from a pipe in the bathroom are just hyperbole. The song, itself, is pretty catchy, in that 70s AM sigalong way that Buffet is such a master of.

7. Love And Luck is probably the least known song on this album, if you're not a Parrothead. The beginning just reminds me so much of Toto's "Africa" that I couldn't help but love this song in high school. It veers pretty quickly into its own thing, but that familiarity, and the requisite 80s horn riff just call to me from 1984 and will not let me go.

8. When I was in high school and had to own every artist's complete discography on CD, as opposed to just having the Greatest Hits albums, even if those were the only songs I knew, Changes In Latitude, Changes In Attitudes, was the first Buffet album I bought. If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane was pretty much the slogan of the dorm I lived in.

9. The previous song just perfectly transitions into Cheeseburgers In Paradise, probably Buffet's second most well-known song. In a world where we didn't constantly reward songs about heartbreak and overcoming adversity, this ode to a very American food would probably have been a #1 hit. The breakdown is delightfully stupid.

10. Taking it down a notch, we get to Grapefruit, Juicy Fruit a ballad about chewing gum and daydreaming that sounds more tropical and breathy than it probably deserves. 

11. I think I was in the midst of reading Tom Robbins's Skinny Legs and All for not the first time when I first heard When Salome Plays The Drums, which may be why I enjoy it so much. Or it's the background vocals, or the line about setting phasers to stun. 

12. One Particular Harbor is very Eaglesy (Buffet did open for them near the end of their initial career). The Tahitian intro translates to Nature lives (life to nature)/Have pity for the Earth (Love the Earth). It sounds much more environmental than the navel-gazing about the meaning of time's passage English lyrics.

13. Every 80s singer songwriter has to have some love song with a very instantly dated chorus that places it solidly in the cocaine and Rubik's Cube era. Money Back Guarantee, with its, obviously, saxaphone riffs, and a reference to Ginsu knives. is Buffet's.  

14. I didn't know where to put Boat Drinks for the longest time. It's one of the few Buffet songs where I can always recognize the lyrics, but can't recognize whichsong it is from the intro music. It's a weird little ditty about cabin fever that features at least the second Star Trek reference on this album.  

15. And that brings us to ...drum roll, please... Margaritaville. Now the name of his tiny empire of resorts in Florida, as well as the name of his restaurants. His most famous song. The most famous song about salt. The second most famous song about tequila. The first 1970s song I ever heard that seemed to be anti-misogynist without aggressively and almost falsely being anti-misogynist. It's a nice change of pace from songs about how women are always hurting male singers' feelings.

16. Pascagoula Run is a lesser-known Buffet track about being adventurous in world travel and love. And it gives time to women being adventurous and promiscuous, too, wthout casting any judgement. It's another outlier in 70s songwriting.

17. But, you know, let's flip that well-meaningness and get into the very silly, but pro-consent Why Don't We Get Drunk. I had a coworker who had three jobs working with children, who loved Jimmy Buffet, and would always play the Songs You Know By Heart even when the kids were around. But she always sang "...IN A LIGHTBULB" after the word screw. Because promoting alcoholism to children is fine.

18. Seeing death as just being Incommunicado is a fascinatingly immature way to way approach it. Buffet talks about his reaction to the death of John Wayne, while Buffet is on a road trip, and how real people rarely day with the bravado of characters in literature and cinema.

19. The Great Filling Station Holdup can be seen as part two of Incommunicado. Buffet is still driving, but he stops at a gas station and robs it because gas is expensive. FIFTY CENTS A GALLON. Ooof. Anyhow, Buffet realizes that the haul from the gas station wasn't really worth it.

20. In the previous song, Buffet lamented he wished he was somewhere other than here. Now he wishes he had a Pencil Thin Mustache. The song is about nostalgia for childhoold, a common Gen X and Millenial theme, but his references (from a song about nostalgia written in the 70s) are soon going to be a think only nerds specializing in early-mid-20th century America trivia know. It also includes one of the only ad jingles as song lyrics you'll hear in any artist discography that I post.

21. The honkey-tonk piano leading into the 80s bright horns and guitarr rifs at the beginning of Domino College are the big draw for me. I only go back to school in nightmares. Haunted background vocals or not.

22. Son Of A Son Of A Sailor  is the beginning of the cooldown to the end of the album, not that I'd call any of the songs on this album anything more than humid. It's on theme with "A Pirate Looks At Forty" as a song of self-reflection with a focus on traveling to exotic (read: non-American) places.

23. The long distant love song is a 70s/80s classic. Guaranteed to involve a pay phone reference. If The Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me is Buffet's take on how he can't call the one he loves and misses because he's on a boat in the ocean. Like that's his entire persona. He can't call you. Cell phones had barely been invented, and certainly didn't get any bars in the middle of the ocean.

24. Now it's time for Buffet to miss a lover who is away from him. He's not away from her. She has gone away for an entire four days, and he has a big sad about in Come Monday (no, not like that). 

25. Closing out the album is Buffet's controversial bisexual anthem about how the man that he also loved has also taken some time away. He Went To Paris is a tearful reminder about how in the 70s, what happened at sea, stayed at sea. Not really. Can you imagine? It's actually about the life of a Spanish Civil War veteran who ends up living his life traveling by sea. Bob Dylan said it's one of his favorite Jimmy Buffet songs. I get that. It is a smooth way to close out this album of songs whose lyrics are embedded forever in my brain.

We start off this season with a TNA event called Turning Point, and spend most of the WWE portion of the season focused on what's probably the best stable in wrestling history, Evolution. Both of these feel like accurate descriptions of this season.

TNA goes from weekly pay-per-views starring Jeff Jarrett, Vince Russo, and a Senior Citizens Home of WCW and WWE superstars with special guest star AJ Styles to a legitimately fun organizatoin with monthly pay-per-views, and slightly less Monday Night Wars-era storytelling.

And while Triple H is in the midst of his Reign Of Terror in the WWE, Samoa Joe absolutely dominates Ring Of Honor, which continues to have effectively minimal storytelling and fantastic matches featuring the future of WWE & AEW. 

And while he doesn't have any matches this season (but don't worry, he'll be dropping by again next season), it's really fun to see Ricky Steamboat pop back up as an ethical referee in Ring Of Honor.

801. Turning Point, 2004

This was the first non-weekly pay-per-view that TNA put on. It seems to set up a returning NWO (dubbed The Kings of Wrestling, with Jeff Jarrett subbing in for Hulk Hogan) but we're going to skip that storyline, apart from its original tease.  We're going to start off with a rumb...I'm sorry, a gauntlet match, and climb up the card until we get to our first heavyweight title match of the season.

​Announcers: Mike Tenay, Don West, Jeremy Borash, Shane Douglas

1. Ultimate X Gauntlet
Kazarian, Sonjay Dutt, TJ Perkins, La Parka, Jerrelle Clark, Miyamoto, Michael Shane, Héctor Garza, Nosawa, Mikey Batts, Alex Shelley, Matt Sydal, Sonny Siaki, Jason Cross, Shark Boy, Psicosis, D-Ray 3000, Amazing Red, Brian Kendrick, Chris Sabin

2. Trinity vs Jacqueline
3. Monty Brown vs Raven vs Abyss in a Monster's Ball Match
4. Petey Williams (X Champ) vs AJ Styles
5. DDP vs Raven
6. Jeff Jarrett (TNA Champ) vs Jeff Hardy

802. Constant Evolution, 2004

Evolution is at its peak here. Sure, Triple H lost his belt last season, but Orton starts off with the Intercontinental Title before leveling up. Batista starts his push as a superstar. We also get a fun interview where John Cena steals Orton's limelight, a full season before the two begin their decade long feud.

​Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jonathan Coachman, Tod Grisham, Lilian Garcia, Tony Chimel, Howard Finkel

1. Batista vs Chris Jericho
2. Randy Orton (WWE Intercontinental Champ) vs Edge
3. Molly Holly vs Victoria
4. Booker T (WWE US Champ) vs John Cena
5. Kurt Angle vs Eddie Guerrero
6. Chris Benoit (WWE Champ) vs Randy Orton 

803.  At Our Best, 2004

Announcers: Mark Nulty, Jimmy Bower, CM Punk

The Briscoes feud with Samoa Joe comes to an end as CM Punk becomes the biggest non-title holding heel in the organization. 

1. Samoa Joe (ROH Champ) vs  Low Ki vs BJ Whittmer vs Dan Maff in a 4 Corners Match
2. AJ Styles (ROH Pure Champ) vs CM Punk
3. The Briscoes (ROH Tag Team Champs) vs Rottweilers
4. Daniel Bryan (as Bryan Danielson) vs CM Punk
5. Samoa Joe (ROH Champ) vs Jay Briscoe in a Steel Cage

804. Thumb War, 2004

Evolution, uhhh, evolves into something different in this episode as we immediately open on a rematch from the previous episode where things go wonderfully, and then terribly for Randy Orton in quick succession. 

​Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler,  Jonathan Coachman, Tod Grisham, Lilian Garcia

1. Randy Orton (WWE Champ) vs Chris Benoit
2. Trish Stratus (WWE Womens Champ) vs Victoria
3. Tomko vs Steven Richards
4. Christian vs Chris Jericho for vacant WWE Intercontinental Champ
5. La Resistance (WWE Tag Team Champs) vs Chris Benoit & Edge 
6. Shelton Benjamin (WWE Intercontinental Champ) vs Christian
​7. Randy Orton vs Ric Flair in a Steel Cage Match

805. Sweet Home Chicago, 2004

It's hard to even remember that CM Punk and Colt Cabana weren't just The Best Of Friends in the aughts, but also a killer tag team. We also see Homicide leap up the card with a new attitude that will keep him in the title picture for the rest of the season.

​Announcers: Mark Nulty, Jimmy Bower

1. Daniel Bryan (as Bryan Danielson) vs Homicide
2. The Briscoes (ROH Tag Team Champs) vs Second City Saints
3. Homicide vs Brian Kendrick
4.  The Briscoes (ROH Tag Team Champs) vs Second City Saints
5. Samoa Joe (ROH Champ) vs Homicide

806. Evolutionary War, 2004

Everyone's favorite apple spitting mid-carder joins the fray in this episode, Spike Dudley gets some well-earned spotlight time, and we have two classic survivor series matches that efffectively weave together several storylines.

Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jonathan Coachman, Maria Kanellis, Tony Chimel, Howard Finkel

1. John Cena (WWE US Champ) vs Carlito
2. Spike Dudley (WWE Cruserweight Champ) vs Rey Mysterio vs Billy Kidman vs Chavo Guerrero
​
3. Team Angle vs Team Guerrero
Kurt Angle, Mark Jindrak, Luther Reigns, and Carlito vs Eddie Guerrero, Big Show, RvD, and John Cena

4. Trish Stratus (WWE Womans Champ) vs Lita
5. Team RKO vs Team Evolution
Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, and Maven vs Triple H, Ric Flair, Batista, and Gene Snitsky

6. JBL (WWE Champ) vs Undertaker vs Eddie Guerrero vs Booker T in a Fatal 4Way

807. Against All Odds, 2004-5

America's Most Wanted is TNA's answer to ROH's Briscoes, as they're a tag team who thrives and is important to the company, regardless of whether or not they're the champs. But, oh, when they're the champs, they absolutely devestate their opponents.

​Announcers: Mike Tenay, Don West, Jeremy Borash, Shane Douglas

1. Sonny Siaki, Héctor Garza, and Sonjay Dutt vs Kid Kash, Michael Shane, and Kazarian
​
2. Petey Williams (X Champ) vs Chris Sabin
3. America's Most Wanted vs Triple X in a Steel Cage
4. America's Most Wanted (TNA Tag Team Champs) vs Kid Kash & Lance Archer
5. DDP & Monty Brown vs Team Canada
6. AJ Styles (X Champ) vs Christopher Daniels in an Iron Man match

808. Dark Disorder, 2005

I don't know if this episode features the only post-WCW Kevin Nash match worth watching, but it does feel that way. We get to see Goldust devoid of any facepaint or outlandish suits for the first time since the second season. And we check in with the X-Division, which is still the best part of TNA, even if it's not as exciting as it was a couple of seasons ago.

​Announcers: Mike Tenay, Don West, Jeremy Borash, Shane Douglas

1. Jeff Jarret (TNA Champ) vs Kevin Nash
2. Goldust (as Dustin Rhodes) vs Raven
3. Jeff Hardy vs Abyss in a Full Metal Mayhem match
4. Ultimate X Challenge
AJ Styles (X Champ), Christopher Daniels, R-Truth, Elix Skipper

809. Scramble Cage Melee, 2004

Sandwiched between two excellent Samoa Joe title defenses is the first and only Scramble Cage Melee, an event so dangerous that Every Participant was injured during the match, neccesitatintg a bunch of rewrites on the fly.
​
​Announcers: Mark Nulty, Jimmy Bower

1. Samoa Joe (ROH Champ) vs CM Punk
2.  Scramble Cage Melee
BJ Whittmer, Jack Evans, Luke Hawx, Dan Maff, DeVito, Diablo Santiago, Dunn, Fast Eddie, Loc, Marcos, Oman Tortuga, and Trent Acid

3. Samoa Joe (ROH Champ) vs CM Punk vs Homicide in a 3 Way Dance

810. Bringing The Thunder, 2004

Jushin Thunder Liger stops in at ROH for a couple of matches, and we see the first of them here as he has a dream match with Daniel Bryan. Plus, Austin Aries starts to climb the ladder towards becoming the New Dominant Force in ROH.

Announcers: Mark Nulty, Jimmy Bower
​
1. Austin Aries vs Daniel Bryan (as Bryan Danielson) in a 2 Out Of 3 Falls Match
2. John Walters (ROH Pure Champ) vs Nigel McGuinness
3. Jay Lethal vs Low-Ki
4. Daniel Bryan (as Bryan Danielson) vs Jushin Thunder Liger

811. Beat The Clock, 2005

The origin of the Trish Stratus/Lita feud, like many storylines for women in a pre-Revolution WWE is horrendous, so you won't see any vignettes about its origins here, just a couple of hard hitting street fights that were atypical of womens' matches at the time. We also see the debut of the Elimination Chamber, including six lead-up matches where the participants try to beat each other's times to get the coveted final chamber entrance.There's also a fun, if mediocre, rumble.

​Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jonathan Coachman, Maria Kanellis, Todd Grisham, Tony Chimel, Howard Finkel

1. Trish Stratus (WWE Womans Champ) vs Lita
2. Chris Jericho vs Christian in a Beat The Clock Match
3. Randy Orton vs Maven in a Beat The Clock Match
4. Edge vs Eugene in a Beat The Clock Match
5. Chris Benoit vs Viscera in a Beat The Clock Match
6. Batista vs Rhyno in a Beat The Clock Match
7. Triple H vs Shelton Benjamin in a Beat The Clock Match
8. Elimination Chamber Match for the WWE Championship
Triple H vs Randy Orton vs Batista vs Chris Jericho vs Chris Benoit vs Edge

9. Royal Rumble

Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Daniel Puder, Hardcore Holly, The Hurricane, Kenzo Suzuki , Edge, Rey Mysterio, Shelton Benjamin, Booker T, Chris Jericho, Luther Reigns, Muhammad Hassan, Orlando Jordan, Scotty 2 Hotty, Charlie Haas, René Duprée, Simon Dean, Shawn Michaels, Kurt Angle, Jonathan Coachman, Mark Jindrak, Mabel (as Viscera), Paul London, John Cena, Gene Snitsky, Kane, Batista, Christian Raw, Ric Flair

812. Lethal Lockdown, 2005

All but one of these matches takes place in a steel cage! And that other match is a Raven House of Fun Match, making this the gimmickiest TNA show yet, but it's got some solid battles and not a Jeff Jarett or Vince Russo in sight.

​Announcers: Mike Tenay, Don West, Shane Douglas, Jeremy Borash

1. Four Man Escape Match
Chris Sabin vs. Matt Bentley vs. Shocker vs. Sonjay Dutt

2. Raven vs Jeff Hardy in a Tables Match
3. America's Most Wanted (Impact Tag Champs) vs Team Canada in a Six Sides of Steel Strap match

​4. Christopher Daniels (Impact X Champ) vs Elix Skipper in a Steel Cage Match
5. AJ Styles vs Abyss in a Steel Cage Match
6. Raven vs X-Pac (as Sean Waltman) in a Raven's House Of Fun Match
7. The Naturals (Impact Tag Champs) vs America's Most Wanted

813. Final Battle, 2004

A​fter two years of running the place, we finally see Samoa Joe lose his title. (Don't worry, he not only picks up a different belt before the season ends, he also starts popping up in TNA.)

Announcers: Dave Penzer, Jimmy Bower

1. Daniel Bryan (as Bryan Danielson) & Low Ki vs Samoa Joe & Jushin Thunder Liger
2. Samoa Joe (ROH Champ) vs CM Punk
3. Daniel Bryan (as Bryan Danielson) vs Homicide
4. Samoa Joe (ROH Champ) vs Austin Aries

814. Going Hollywood, 2005

​The first ever Money In The Bank Ladder Match is the show stealer in an episode that features nothing but All Time Greats in the WWE. We also get one of the best callbacks in WWE history. Certainly the best callback involving thumbs.

​Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz, Tony Chimel, Howard Finkel
​

1. Lita (WWE Womens Champ) vs Trish Stratus
2. Edge vs Shawn Michaels
3. John Cena vs Kurt Angle
4. JBL (WWE Champ) vs Scotty 2 Hotty
5. Rey Mysterio vs Eddie Guerrero
6. Money In The Bank Ladder Match
Edge, Chris Jericho, Shelton Benjamin, Chris Benoit, Christian, and Kane

7. Triple H (WWE Heavyweight Champ) vs Batista

​

​815. Stale Mates, 2005

We start this episode with a match from a Trios tournament that features some WWE cruserweights battling it out with two ROH legends and Vondell Walker (sorry, Vondell, the only thing I really know about you is that you once went shoot on Rick Steiner, which is a match I wish I had to put in this chronology). The biggest part of this episode, though, is that they FINALLY change the lighting array, and future matches aren't as dark and red as the previous ones. 

​Announcers: Dave Penzer, Jimmy Bower

1. Samoa Joe, Daniel Bryan & Vordell Walker vs Brian Kendrick, Jamie Noble & Nigel McGuiness

2. Samoa Joe & Jay Lethal vs CM Punk & Brian Kendrick
3. Daniel Bryan vs Brian Kendrick
4. Alex Shelley vs Colt Cabana vs Nigel McGuiness vs Samoa Joe
5. Austin Aries (ROH Champ) vs Homicide

816. No Titles, Just Legends, 2005

​This is the strangest WWE card this season. Wrestlemania 21 was, for the first time in a few years, good enough to split between two episodes. We start off with The Legend Killer trying to end The Streak, follow it up with a great technical match between two WWE legends, continue the excellent Mysterio/Guerrero feud (sans Dominik), and wrap things up with a Dream Tag Team in a mediocre, rah rah rah match. I wasn't going to include any Muhammad Hassan in this chronology, but this helps build to the best Worst match in WWE history.

​Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz, Tony Chimel, Howard Finkel
​
1. Undertaker vs Randy Orton
2. Kurt Angle vs Shawn Michaels
3. Rey Mysterio vs Eddie Guerrero
4. Shawn Michaels & Hulk Hogan vs Muhammad Hassan & Khosrow Daivari

817. Gauntlet For The Gold, 2005

Another not quite royal rumble in TNA and some more X Division focused battles.
​
​Announcers: Mike Tenay, Don West, Shane Douglas, Jeremy Borash

1. Christopher Daniels (Impact X Champ) vs Shocker
2. Gauntlet For The Gold
Bobby Roode, Zach Gowen, Eric Young, Cassidy Riley, Elix Skipper, Shark Boy, A-1,  Chris Sabin, Petey Williams, Sonny Siaki, Lance Hoyt, Michael Shane, Jerrelle Clarke, Mikey Batts, Billy Gunn, Trytan, R-Truth, Apolo, Road Dogg, Abyss

3. Christopher Daniels (Impact X Champ) vs Chris Sabin vs Michael Shane

4. King Of The Mountain Match
AJ Styles vs. Raven vs. Abyss vs. X-Pac vs. Monty Brown

5. Raven (Impact Heavyweight Champ) vs Abyss in a Dog Collar Match
6. AJ Styles vs X-Pac

818. Mid-Card Again, 2005

The last WWE Episode starred nothing but the All-Time Greats (and Daivari). This one has a bit more variety but is just as fun. This is also probably the only episode that features The World's Greatest Tag Team members in separate matches. 

​Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jonathan Coachman, Josh Matthews, Todd Grisham, Lilian Garcia, Tony Chimel

1. Shelton Benjamin (WWE Intercontinental Champ) vs Chris Jericho
2. Hulk Hogan & Shawn Michaels vs Kurt Angle & Carlito
3. Edge vs Chris Benoit in a Last Man Standing Match
4. MNM (WWE Tag Team Champs) vs Hardcore Holly and Charlie Haas
5. John Cena (WWE Champ) vs JBL in an I Quit Match
6. Batista (WWE Heavyweight Champ) vs Triple H

I was getting some work done the other night, and was playing a variety of albums from my Guilty Pop list (which is all pop, only occasionally guilty). I threw on my Cyndi Lauper album and Comrade started singing along to the occasional song, or announcing "This is a bop. I thought Cyndi Lauper was mostly an actor." 

I, too, had a realization a decade or so ago that I kew way more Cyndi Lauper songs than I thought. Yea, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, yea True Colors, yea Time After Time. After that there were a few songs that if I thought about Cyndi long enough, I'd go "Oh, and..." All Through The Night, She Bop, Money Changes Everything. The rest of the songs on this album I wouldn't have been able to come up with if you asked me to name any Cyndi Lauper songs, but I know most to all of the words.

I had imagined this would be a One Album Discography, as I only heard the occasional uninspired cover song by Lauper after, say, 1989. But that's the fault of either the radio or my friends with poor taste, as Lauper has some interesting country, standards, and blues covers, mostly because her voice is still so unusual, and so passionate. I'll get to that album when I'm more familiar with her later work. 

1. Cascading down like synthesized rain, All Through The Night should have been the opening track of the original album. You could argue about opening it with "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" for the hit factor, but otherwise, this is the sensible opener to me. Sure, it's kind of a mid-tempo song, lacking the kick of some of the other tracks, but it's got a catchy chorus and it's simultaneously bright and haunting. It's the perfect weird track for this gorgeous, weird album. You also get a taste of Lauper's voice when it's not So Long Island.

2. In elementary/middle school, there were a trio of somwehat popular kids who had their own dialect of taunt. They used Italian words, and occasional song lyrics as they shook their heads at their targets. Iko Iko was one of their favorite taunts. I have no idea which version of the song they were familiar with but Lauper's was the first one I heard. 

3. When my partner, Comrade, first heard She's So Unusual, he asked why I had a Betty Boop song on my playlist. It is a lovely, weird little song. I suppose this is another song you could argue would be an appropriately odd opener for the album. The old 1940s style intro launches into a sort of generic girl-group sounding rock song. I don't mean the song sounds generic. It sounds like the one off-beat song that Bananarama or The Go-Gos released, The track where you could tell they were actually having fun.

4. The Faraway Nearby is a song that I could have only heard when listening to Lauper's True Colors album. I don't ever remember it until it's playing. I've always loved the way she sings "out from the faraway", and I love the way the ending of the song seamlessly transitions to 

5. True Colors. One of those rare songs that's not written by the vocalist but becomes the vocalist's song. The lyricist, Billy Steinberg, says that he wrote this song as a gospel piano ballad, passed it along to Lauper who decon and reconstructed it to fit her voice and style. It's one of the most resonant ballads of the 1980s in that you can definitely identify when it was produced and recorded but it still has a timeless emotional appeal. The world has never needed Phil Collins, Ana Kendrick, or Justin Timberlake to cover it.

6. I'm not sure which movie soundtrack I think Change Of Heart should have appeared on. It could be a rom-com, it could be an action movie, it could have been the shopping montage from Pretty Woman. It definitely belongs somewhere. It has such a great upbeat energy. I didn't know until this listenthrough that the backing vocalists are The Bangles, who you'll note, I didn't list as a generic girl group earlier. They're one of the most solid pop-rock groups of the 80s. The video for this was shot in England, and it includes a poster for Nightmare On Elm Street 2, an accidentally gay camp horror. This is so on brand for Lauper that it can't be an accident.

7. Lauper's interpretations of almost any song she voices becomes undeniably hers. It's rare that I listen to one of her songs and think "You could use this exact arrangement and replace her vocals with another famous singer, and it would work perfectly as is." Money Changes Everything,  however, could have been a hit for any ambitious New Wave singer from Ric Ocasek to David Byrne to Annie Lennox to Debby Harry to any and all of the vocalists in the B-52s.

8. Do I need to say anything about Girls Just Want To Have Fun? This is the one song Everyone Knows is by Cyndi Lauper. It's one of the most iconic songs and videos from the 1980s. Lauper has had a long career crossing into a variety of genres. Her live shows can pull from anywhere in her extensive catalog, but I think any fan would feel robbed if she didn't sing this bop (as opposed to another upcoming bop) at some point during her performance. This is another of the rare songs I wish I heard the B-52s cover.

9. I earlier disparaged Phil Collins's cover of True Colors. Calm Before The Storm is the most Phil Collinsy song from Lauper's catalog. I'm not sure if it's the production on the drums or the way she holds on to the notes but I could definitely hear this coming off Hello, I Must Be Going. I mean this in the best possible way for both artists.

10. From Phil Collinsish to actually Billy Joel. Code Of Silence is one of the many unexpected duets on Joel's vastly underrated  and weirdly unhappy The Bridge.  If you really hate Billy Joel, give this album a listen. There are some pretty catchy songs that were never really hits, and he claims to have been absolutely miserable when recording it.

11. My father collected cassettes of old radio shows, which I used to listen to. This gave me some weird associations growing up. For example, I always think of The Shadow episode "Nursery Rhyme Killer" whenever I see Boy Blue, be it little or no. This is the song I least remember, apart from the On the street, kids walkin',/Just a kid walkin', just a kid walkin', just a kid/Where are you/Where are you/Where are you boy blue/Hey, where are you section near the end, which sound like they belong in a low budget Corey Feldman/Corey Haim movie...probably Dream A Little Dream, not that I'd change a single song from that movie.

​12. Someone told me what the song She-Bop was about when I was way too young to have any idea what they meant. It was a just a quirky song with that bee-bop-ba-LOOP-she-boppart that everyone loved to sing along to. It wasn't until I heard that certain Divinyls song that I went, Ohhhhh, right, like She-Bop!The synths on this track are so 1984, it's sort of shocking that George Orwell didn't play them.

13. More synth magic sets the mood for When You Were Mine. I love the contrast between the alternating verses, one being a chill multi-track, the next being single track super Cyndi crooning. There's also some killer head voice that pops up here.

14. We close off the album with the classic ballad, Time After Time. This is one of those songs that gets covered frequently, but often by interesting vocalists, even though this is nearly the most mainstream Cyndi's voice ever sounds. Rob Hyman gets props for a basic-ass performance of the melody that make Lauper's harmonies soar. It's almost Simon and Garfunkely in its beautiful simplicity. I also love ending the album on fading whispers.