Olivia Newton-John - Physical
#485
By Andrew Cremeans
October 13 1981
Olivia Newton John
Physical
Genre: Pop
Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5
Andy's Rating : 3 out of 5
Full disclosure, I was in love with Olivia Newton John when I was a kid and I'm pretty sure my wife and I inadvertently named our daughter after her character in Xanadu. With that said, I feel like (outside of straight up rock n' roll,) a lot of music was struggling to find its identity in 1981.
Olivia Newton John's 'Physical' is somewhere between the last remaining gasps from disco and the proto-amobea stage of mid-80s classic bubble gum pop.
While we're all aware of the song "Physical," but it really doesn't match the tone (or quality) of the rest of the album. Probably because the song was written by two dudes who had originally intended to offer it to Rod Stewart. The song had also been offered to Tina Turner but she turned it down and it ended up with Newton-John. It remains the one song with the "hooks" of a polished pop hit.
There are a couple of pretty solid pop songs on the album, like the opening track "Landslide" and "Make a Move on Me," but not solid enough to pull out of the memory banks after the album is over. We do find the classic ONJ sounds in songs like "Carried Away" and "Falling" (which is just a beautiful song) but overall, when a everyone looks back on the legacy of ONJ, the "Physical" album will be a tiny blip in the montage, probably a 5 second clip of her glowy image in the exercise outfit.
Oh, also there is a nearly 5 minute song about the plight of dolphins at the hands of humans.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4L84oUhMXsdbKSJ5LUuOQl?si=aCm-bUQ3SeeH-E4otJXmmg
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