The Body Acoustic is the ninth studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 released by Cyndi Lauper

Cyndi Lauper

Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is an American singer, songwriter, actress and LGBT rights activist. She achieved success in the mid-1980s with the release of the album She's So Unusual and became the first female singer to have four top-five singles released from one album...

. It consists of ten previously released tracks which have been re-recorded and re-arranged acoustically

Acoustic music

Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...

, as well as two entirely new songs. The album title is a play on Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...

's poem I Sing the Body Electric

I Sing the Body Electric (Whitman)

"I Sing the Body Electric" is a poem by Walt Whitman from his 1855 collection Leaves of Grass.Its original publication, like the other poems in Leaves of Grass, did not have a title. In fact, the line "I sing the body electric" was not added until the 1867 edition. At the time, "electric" was not...

, with the word body in this case referring to Lauper's body of work as a recording artist. The album features a number of special guests, including Adam Lazzara

Adam Lazzara

Adam Burbank Lazzara , is the lead singer of the American rock band, Taking Back Sunday. Along with singing lead vocals, Adam Lazzara occasionally plays guitar and harmonica.-Biography:...

, Shaggy, Sarah McLachlan

Sarah McLachlan

Sarah Ann McLachlan, OC, OBC is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter. Known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range, as of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four...

, Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...

, Vivian Green

Vivian Green

Vivian Green is an American R&B and soul singer, songwriter and pianist.-Early life:Green was born May 22, 1979 in the East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and took an interest in singing, playing the piano, and songwriting at a very young age. At the age of thirteen, she...

, Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.-Biography:...

, and Puffy AmiYumi

Puffy AmiYumi

or Puffy AmiYumi is a Japanese rock duo that is currently signed with Sony Music Japan. The group continues to go by the moniker of PUFFY in Japan, but in order to avoid legal naming conflicts with Sean Combs, it has adopted the name Puffy AmiYumi outside of Japan...

.

A DualDisc

DualDisc

DualDisc was a type of double-sided optical disc product developed by a group of record companies including EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and 5.1 Entertainment Group and later under the aegis of the Recording Industry Association of America...

 edition of the album was released which contained the entire album in enhanced stereo, four new videos directed by Lauper herself as well as a behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of the album.

Track listing

Tracks 5 and 6 are new songs, recorded specially for this album.

Personnel

• Cyndi Lauper – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , appalachian dulcimer
  Appalachian dulcimer
  The Appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings. It is native to the Appalachian region of the United States...
  
  , guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  
• Rick Chertoff – piano
  Piano
  The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
  
  , producer
• Allison Cornell – violin
  Violin
  The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
  
  , viola
  Viola
  The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
  
  , dulcimer drone, background vocals
  Backing vocalist
  A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
  
  
• Jeff Beck
  Jeff Beck
  Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...
  
   – guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
   on "Above the Clouds"
• Kat Dyson – slide guitar
  Slide guitar
  Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
  
  , rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
  
   on "Sisters of Avalon"
• Mark Egan – bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Steve Gaboury – organs
  Organ (music)
  The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
  
  , juno
  Roland Juno-60
  The Roland Juno-60 is a popular analogue 61-key polyphonic synthesizer produced by Roland Corporation in the early 1980s and a successor to the slightly earlier Juno-6. Like its predecessor, the Juno-60 has some digital enhancements, used only for clocking the oscillators and for saving and loading...
  
  , harmonium
  Harmonium
  A harmonium is a free-standing keyboard instrument similar to a reed organ. Sound is produced by air being blown through sets of free reeds, resulting in a sound similar to that of an accordion...
  
  
• Jim Hines – trumpet
  Trumpet
  The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
  
  
• Rob Hyman – melodica
  Melodica
  The melodica, also known as the "blow-organ" or "key-flute", is a free-reed instrument similar to the melodeon and harmonica. It has a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. Pressing a key opens a hole,...
  
  
• Zev Katz – bass
• Tom Malone
  Tom Malone (musician)
  Tom "Bones" Malone is an American jazz musician. As his nickname implies, he specializes on the trombone, but also plays trumpet, tuba, tenor sax, baritone sax, flutes, piccolo, and other instruments....
  
   – trombone
  Trombone
  The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
  
  
• Sammy Merendino – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Jamie West-Oram – guitar
• William Wittman – bass guitar, background vocals, producer

Chart performance

Chart (2005)	Peak position	Total weeks
Austria Austria Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the... n Albums Chart	60	1
Colombia Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...  Albums Chart	47
French France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...  Albums Chart	190	1
Italian Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...  Albums Chart	40
Japan Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south... ese Albums Chart	42
Swiss Switzerland Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....  Albums Chart	86	1
UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...	55	1
US United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...  Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	112	2