There are albums that define an era, and then there are albums that quietly reshape how we feel about ourselves. True Colours by Cyndi Lauper sits firmly in the second category – forty years on, it still feels like a conversation you didn’t realise you needed.
Released in September 1986, the follow-up to her explosive debut didn’t chase the same wild-pop chaos. Instead, Lauper leaned into something more intimate, more deliberate, and, in many ways, more enduring. The title track, True Colours, isn’t just a song – it’s a cultural imprint. Stripped back, emotionally raw, and impossibly sincere, it became an anthem long before that word was thrown around so freely. It holds space. It listens. And even now, it lands with that same quiet power.
But this album isn’t a one-note emotional ride. There’s a slick, slightly darker edge running through tracks like Change of Heart and Boy Blue, where Lauper experiments with rhythm and attitude, giving the record a pulse that keeps it from drifting too far into ballad territory. What’s Going On, her take on the Marvin Gaye classic, is bold – reimagined through her lens, it feels urgent, personal, and surprisingly modern.
What makes True Colours resonate four decades later is its refusal to perform. There’s no overproduction masking emotion, no trend-chasing gloss. It’s honest, sometimes messy, sometimes restrained, but always unmistakably her. Lauper wasn’t trying to be louder than the 80s – she was carving out her own frequency within it.
Forty years on, the album feels less like a relic and more like a mirror. Its themes – identity, vulnerability, resilience – haven’t aged, because they were never tied to a moment. They were tied to being human. And that’s why True Colours doesn’t just survive the decades… it quietly outlives them.
In many ways she has been underestimated as an artist by the main-stream aside from her big hits. But, she’s still serving her true colours regardless. And, us fans, well, we just love her for it.
Track List:
Change of Heart
Maybe He’ll Know
Boy Blue
True Colours
Calm Inside The Storm
What’s Going On (originally by Marvin Gaye)
Iko Iko
The Faraway Nearby
911
One Track Mind
