IT JUST TAKES A BEAT/TO TURN IT AROUND: Oh, “The Essential Cyndi Lauper” is the most amazing thing on earth. I’m so in love. There’s one dud (“Sisters of Avalon,” whatever, please stop reading Mercedes Lackey while smoking pot) and one mediocrity (“Hatful of Stars,” shrug), but everything else is sparkling liquid Cyndi. She has the voice that every ’80s pop diva (with the possible exception of Annie Lennox and the definite non-exception of Madonna) wanted. She can go from squeaky to cigarettes-and-whiskey in a microsecond. She’s the Freaky Freezies of glamour. She’s television melodrama as grand epic, caterwauling all her torch songs.

Also, you should check out the Young Marble Giants’ “Colossal Youth.” Like cold coffee with your best friend at three in the morning. Guitar and bass as percussion; shifting, lonesome, allusive lyrics; New Wave cosmopolitan cool, a woman whose dress doesn’t match her high heels drinking something blue at the bar. Don’t you want to go over and get her number?

And Elvis Costello seems to work on me the way marijuana is supposed to: first time, blah, after that it’s all good. Recently rediscovered “Trust” and now cannot stop playing it. (Actual pot does a whole lotta nothing for me.) You don’t need the extra bonus disc, though–too bad, as the recent re-release bonus Elvis discs have typically been great. Not this one, though.