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.....
Sunday, November 9, 2014
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 1st album in late summer
1988, it was initially ignored. But persistence pays off. The 3rd
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 6th
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
1st 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)
COLD HEARTED (Music Video)
RUSH RUSH (Music Video)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)