When Cyndi Lauper's MERRY CHRISTMAS...HAVE A NICE LIFE was first released back in '98, I remember reading some capsule review in some popular magazine or other (maybe PEOPLE?) to the effect that it was surprisingly good, better than it "had a right to be," in fact. Huh? Is that a compliment? I imagine the reviewer thought he was being pretty darn generous to a performer, whom he no doubt recalled as being basically a novelty act from the early MTV days. What's frustrating about reviews like this is that they seldom reference any previous recording other than SHE'S SO UNUSUAL (or, if you're lucky, TRUE COLORS). Cyndi's 90s work(HAT FULL OF STARS and SISTERS OF AVALON) had demonstrated a maturing talent (not that the "immature" stuff was bad--far from it). It's just that, had anybody been bothering to listen, they would have known that she was an artist to be taken seriously and a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, too many had writte...