Singer-songwriter, icon, tireless advocate – Cyndi Lauper’s position in history is firmly cemented. But it wasn’t always this way.
Just one step away from the coveted EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony – only the Oscar remains to be won), Lauper hit the big time with the 1983 single Girls Just Want to Have Fun and album She’s So Unusual. By then, she had been in the industry struggling for more than a decade. And the documentary Let the Canary Sing provides a context to the struggles she faced both at home and within the male-dominated music business. Four successive top five songs from a debut album (the first female recording artist in history) still didn’t make it easy for her.
Tireless in the advocacy of her beliefs (feminism, gay rights and homelessness in particular) along with diverse musical tastes and influences, Let the Canary Sing overall accentuates the positive. A number of negatives in her early life are excluded (rape, hospitalisation for malnutrition, dropped by her record label) as Lauper looks not to (all) True Colours but in turning back time, looks to the many albums, Tony and Olivier Best New Musical Awards for Kinky Boots and personal journeys instead.
Nostalgic, insightful, Alison Ellwood’s documentary may not provide a great deal of new material, but it will undoubtedly please her legion of millions of fans.
Rating: 72%
Director: Alison Ellwood (Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place, TV’s How to Change Your Mind)
An Opinion or Two 