POST #1 OUTTA THE WAY

Now that Post #1 is over and done, here's a quick summary of what this blog is all about. Quite simply, I am starting with a whole bunch of "A" artists and reviewing their works. The ratings system works as follows

***** (5 stars)  classic or essential works
**** (4 stars)    excellent, for most artists, this will represent the peak of their work
*** (3 stars)      good. appeal will be primarily for already established fans of the artist
** (2 stars)        fair. fans may enjoy but everyone else is advised to steer clear
* (1 star)           bad and bad and bad. not good, in other words
 (0 stars)            listening to this album may propel you to suicide. caution strongly advised.

This is all just for fun from a diehard lover of all kinds of popular music.....

PAULA ABDUL DISCOGRAPHY

Forever Your Girl (1988)              ***.5 (3.5)

Shut Up and Dance (1990)             ** (2)

Spellbound (1991)                           *** (3)

Head Over Heels (1995)                 **.5 (2.5)

Greatest Hits (2000)                       ***.5(3.5)

Straight Up: Greatest Hits (2007) **** (4)

Paula Abdul had been a dancer and a choreographer, responsible for the dance moves in iconic videos by Janet Jackson and others. When she released her 1^st album in late summer 1988, it was initially ignored. But persistence pays off. The 3^rd single from the album “Straight Up” also started off slow but would climb all the way to #1 in early 1989. A year later, Abdul would have an incredible four #1 singles from her debut, a record that still stands. So what was it about this debut CD that sold an amazing seven million copies in the US alone? Well, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly. It certainly wasn’t Abdul’s voice. Was it her personality? It’s clear that she was one of the spiritual children of Madonna, but she was far more successful than any of the other knock-offs and clones that record labels paraded out in the late 80s. Perhaps it was simply her moment in time and she grabbed it and ran.

Then again, a listen to Forever Your Girl reveals that Abdul did record some pretty good songs. For many, “Straight Up” captures much of the essence of 1989. The best song on the album, though, is undeniably “Cold Hearted” whose slinking groove weakened many otherwise reasonable souls on its way to Gold status. And “Opposites Attract” – the video of which displayed Paula singing a duet with a cartoon character – was simply fun in a way that is too often missing from the pop charts (at least in the USA).

Sometimes, you have to strike while the iron is hot. Virgin realized this and threw out Shut Up and Dance (The Dance Mixes) in 1990. This crass example of commercialism gone haywire merely contained remixes from her debut with a medley of her biggest hits. Naturally, it sold over a million copies. The trick had worked for Madonna as well a few years earlier, but at least she had three albums to draw from compared to Abdul’s one.

When Paula Abdul returned in 1991, it was with a bang. The video for “Rush Rush” was a homage to the classic James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause and co-starred Keanu Reeves. It was completely over the top and yet it worked – much like the song itself. For this writer’s money, “Rush Rush” is Abdul’s overall best song. Apparently the nation agreed as it jumped to #1 and stayed there for five weeks – the longest run at the top of the Hot 100 since early 1985. Unfortunately, the rest of Spellbound doesn’t live up to the lead single’s promise.  “The Promise of a New Day” became her 6^th and final #1 single but “Vibeology” was more in line with the debut’s antics. “Blowing Kisses in the Wind” has also stood the test of time well but most of the remainder is fairly forgettable.

Head Over Heels followed in 1995. Pop music rarely stands still (though trends tend to repeat on a fairly cyclical basis) and much had changed since Spellbound had been released. Abdul’s response was to lean toward a slightly more R&B feel (“If I Were Your Girl” & “My Love Is For Real”) though some songs (“Sexy Thoughts”) sounded just like 1989. Ultimately though the public had moved on and the album barely went gold (still an impressive half a million but compared to earlier Abdul albums, this was rather stale) and produced a grand total of one Top 40 hit. The relative merits of the album (or lack there-of) were lost amongst the public failure of the work. Abdul turned to other entertainment pursuits: acting and eventually achieving a bizarre level of fame as one of the three judges for the 1^st several years of American Idol. Ironically, this series probably made her better known to the public at large than all of her millions of albums sold – such is the power of television.

As for the compilations available, Greatest Hits curiously includes the album versions of all her hit songs. Most of Abdul’s singles were remixed into “single versions” and Straight Up: Greatest Hits gets things right by including the versions that were heard all over the radio and played constantly on MTV and VH1 back in the day. All the hits (and a few choice LP cuts) are present in the punched-up sounds that you remember, if you were there. If you weren’t there, you may be curious to know just why that American Idol judge Paula is famous – here’s the answer. (The verdict’s still out on Randy Jackson). Speaking of Jackson, Abdul emerged in the late 2000s with a single “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow” from his album project and it scraped the bottom of the Hot 100 (which actually isn’t too bad for an artist far removed from her peak years), but it didn’t lead to a new album and Abdul remains better known in the 2010s as a reality TV judge….

COLD HEARTED (Music Video)

RUSH RUSH (Music Video)