Stuck In Our Head: "I Drove All Night" - Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi Lauper released her third album, A Night To Remember, in 1989, the same year that Madonna sealed her success and made her legacy a sure thing with her 4th record, Like a Prayer. Despite being Cyndi's highest charting album in the UK, it peaked at 37 in America and spelt the beginning of the end for her as a mainstream pop superstar. Listening to the album now, it sounds like an album of lost 80s hits, a cohesive and tirelessly melodic work that should've been more successful than it was. But when you take into account the fact that it was released right at the end of the 80s when the bouncy, upbeat cheesepop that had previously sold like scorching gateaux was rapidly going out of style and a new, darker, more rock-influenced sound was becoming popular, you can understand how it might have sounded unfresh.

"I Drove All Night" was the first single from it, and stands as her last big smash hit, going top ten in America and the UK. Unfortunately it's now better known as a Celine Dion or Roy Orbison song, but Cyndi's is by far our favourite. Over a restless synthesized cello riff Lauper purrs "I had to escape: the city was sticky and cruel". The song is essentially about a booty call, and the long, dull journey that precedes it, but Cyndi makes it sound as sensual and yearning as anything. It's a great song to wail along to, even if it, rather depressingly, represents the end of an era of success for an icon.