Shine (Cyndi Lauper album)

Shine
Studio album / Extended play by
ReleasedJuly 2002 (EP)
May 3, 2004 (LP in Japan)
Recorded1999/2000
Genre
Length54:47
Label
Producer
  • Cyndi Lauper
  • William Wittman
Cyndi Lauper chronology
Merry Christmas ... Have a Nice Life
(1998)
Shine
(2002)
The Essential Cyndi Lauper
(2003)
Singles from Shine
  1. "Shine"
    Released: 2002

Shine is the eighth studio album by American singer Cyndi Lauper, released exclusively in Japan in 2004. The album was ready for release in 2001 but Edel Records, the label it was recorded with, folded. Two EPs were released instead: One was also called "Shine" (2002) and the other was called "Shine Remixes" (2003). The "Shine EP" has sold 41,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The album expands on the sound Lauper developed with her 1997 album Sisters of Avalon. Mostly pop songs, it flirts with electronica and new wave while incorporating traditional instruments like sitars and fiddles. The songs are not lyrically linked, and explore themes ranging from the Madonna–Whore Complex to celebrity life.

The track "It's Hard to be Me" was penned about Anna Nicole Smith; Smith attempted to buy it as the theme song to her reality show but Lauper declined. In 2010, Lauper did allow the independently produced television pilot Hard to Be Me to use the track for its theme song. She then subsequently used it as the theme song to her own reality show Cyndi Lauper: Still So Unusual.