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Cyndi Lauper didn't want to be pigeonholed by her song "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." After MTV videos and guest appearances with the World Wrestling Federation, she had to decide what to do next. By 1993 it had been ten years since her first album, "She's So Unusual," and even her 1985 follow-up album "True Colors" had spawned three top-40 hits. But her third album had not, and Lauper was anxious to showcase her range as a singer.

Cyndi was 40 years old, and the album shows her struggling to find a more mature sound. During this period she had broken up with her long-time partner of 17 years. She also took some time to remember her humble beginnings in Brooklyn. Out of all her experiences came the album "Hat Full of Stars." One of its track ("Like I Used To") even has an unmistakeable "girl group" sound echoing Cyndi's teenaged years in the 1960s.

It takes its name from the album's final track, an adult contemporary number with a sad vocal and a piano accompaniment, reportedly written about her former boyfriend. Lauper was determined to be taken seriously, and included a song about a battered housewife and a friend who died during an illegal abortion. But even the album's upbeat numbers have a strange urban vibe to them. Lauper brought in a New York club DJ named Junior Vasquez, who created an original sound combining hip-hop and folk instruments.

The album sold 4 million copies, and signaled a new phase in Cyndi's career. The first track even rose to #14 on America's dance charts - a strange mix of drums and recorder called "That's What I Think (When I Think About You)." The song "Feels Like Christmas" was included on the soundtrack of a Michael J. Fox movie in 1993 called "Life with Mikey." Though sales were slow in the U.S., the album reached the top 20 overseas in France, Japan, and Colombia. But more importantly, it gave Lauper a chance to combine her personality and her voice into a new kind of music.

"Hat Full of Stars" has a fresh new sound, and it was a good fit for Cyndi's aspirations. She wanted to be more than an MTV video star, and this album endeared her even more to her core of loyal fans. "You can't define yourself in terms of someone else," Lauper warns in one song, and for better or worse, she was determined to spend the next forty years of her life showing audiences more of the real Cyndi Lauper.

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