The band practiced a quieter but no less groundbreaking form of iconoclasm on its follow-up, Odyshape. Whether you think of it as one of the earliest classics of London post-punk or as a forerunner to feminist rock, the Raincoats’ self-titled 1979 debut was nothing short of revolutionary. And on “Downer,” he screams some parting advice: “Don’t feel guilty masturbating!” After spending his entire youth feeling boxed-in and ashamed, he wanted everyone who heard him to know they didn’t have to feel the same. “Scoff” rails against a parent who gaslights him into believing the worst about himself. Seattle’s grunge scene, he contended, was no better than a petty high-school clique.Ĭobain never disguised the pain at the root of his rage. He postscripts “About a Girl,” the album’s most tuneful track and a glimpse at the melodic impulses that would make him one of the defining rock musicians of the ’90s, with “School,” a roaring fuck-you to purists who might object to such a flirtation with pop. Cobain was already realizing that punk, which he’d once seen as a respite from the restrictive establishment, had its own tendency toward groupthink. On Nirvana’s mercilessly scuzzy debut, Bleach, Cobain railed against zealots, bigots, chauvinists, and father figures-especially father figures-with the awkward, wounded rage of an alienated teen. Real anger, he understood, is ugly and isolating. Punk had a way of making anger sound righteous and fashionable, but Kurt Cobain knew better. In Lauper’s voice, its lyrics became an ode to girls everywhere who are causing scenes and staking out their right to adventures, time after time. It was Lauper’s brash delivery and rewritten lyrics that defined the album’s globe-conquering slumber-party anthem, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Inspired by the women’s movement and the rawness of bands like the Clash, Lauper turned the original song-written by a man, Robert Hazard-from an arguably sexist power-pop tune into an anti-authoritarian, feminist rallying cry. Lauper’s four-octave voice always curled slightly into a shout-you could be forgiven, today, for thinking that it’s Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker on “Yeah Yeah.” It felt all the more heroic given Lauper’s previous difficulties in the music industry and her tumultuous personal path, which found the Queens native fleeing home at 17 to escape her abusive stepfather. She tied in wild laughter, a Betty Boop sample, and an air of gleeful oddity. Then 30 years old, she sang unstoppable covers of Prince (blurring away gender norms) and the new wave band the Brains (complicating its anti-capitalist statement even further). Her solo debut, She’s So Unusual, stands as an all-time great art-pop collage. After the demise of her band Blue Angel, Cyndi Lauper became one. The 1980s marked a time when true oddballs could infiltrate the pop machine and transform-through new wave’s armor of shiny synths and perfect beats-into radio-ready superheroes.
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