Cyndi Lauper's beloved girl power anthem "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" has now joined YouTube's one billion-views club.
The song from Lauper’s debut album, She’s So Unusual, is her first to cross the billion line, 13 years after the iconic music video was first uploaded to YouTube.
“A lot of people don’t realize this, but ‘Girls’ is really a political song,” Lauper said in a statement about the track, which is a cover of the original written and performed by Robert Hazard.
She continued, “When I got my feminist hands on it, I knew I wanted to make it into an anthem for all women. Sonically, I wanted the song to be uplifting and joyful. When it came time to make the video, it was really important to me to make sure we included women from every walk of life. I wanted every little girl watching the video to have the joyful experience of seeing herself on that screen. I wanted us to be a community.”
After the song's release in 1983, the Edd Griles-directed video became a MTV staple: always in rotation during the early days when the channel played music clips 24 hours a day. The video introduced the world to Lauper's pixie-like voice, and featured her real mom as the disappointed matriarch in the video and wrestler/manager Captain Lou Albano as her dad. The visual won Best Female Video at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. The song became Lauper's breakthrough hit, with "Girls" being nominated for a Grammy and hitting the No. 2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Years later, at the Women’s March...I saw all types of women and girls carrying signs saying ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun-damental Rights,'” Lauper added in her statement. “And now, here we are at a billion views. Back when we made the video, there was no YouTube, so when you think about it, it’s really extraordinary — the reach that this song has. The longevity. That people still purposely seek this video out and press play. Wow. I’m really grateful. Thank you.”
The Grammy, Tony, and Emmy-winning Lauper has sold more than 50 million records worldwide and is the first woman in history to have four top-five singles from a debut album ("Girls Just Want To Have Fun," "Time After Time," "She Bop," and "All Through the Night").
"Girls Just Want to Have Fun” joins the billion-views club as the fifth song from the 1980s. The four others are: Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” A-ha’s “Take on Me,” Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” and Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Re-watch "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" below.
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Article Image: Cyndi Lauper with white winged sunglasses in the "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" music video. (Cyndi Lauper via YouTube.)
