The 1981 Listening Post - Olivia Newton-John - Physical

 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

The 1985 Listening Post - Olivia Newton John - Soul Kiss

Olivia Newton John - Soul Kiss

#387/1023

October 8 1985

Olivia Newton John

Soul Kiss

Genre: Pop

2.5 out of 5

Confession. 

I was given Have You Never Been Mellow when I was ten. 

I don’t know who gave it to me and I’m not sure what their intent was but I used to stare at Olivia’s gauzy vasolined image on that cover while listening to her wistfully ask if I had “never been mellow” and I was entranced. 

I didn’t really know why. I didn’t understand it. But I was in her grasp.

And then I forgot about her, as young boys will and I moved on to the likes of Farrah and other long trellised blondes of the era. Oh, sure, she fell back into my life a couple years later in Grease but, let’s be honest…what was she doing in that movie. (And by then I had moved on to Dinah Manoff (who I would meet about 10 years later and…well…that’s a story that has no place here. No. Nothing that you’re thinking…) Occasionally ONJ would come back on my radar…like when I finally saw Xanadu. But that was a rarity and my relationship with her was over. 

Not even her spandex exercising of Physical was enough to bring me back. 

And even though I kind of enjoyed “Queen of the Publication”, this is   MOR pop that deserves no more of our attention. 

But “you were great, how was I?” Is such an egregious bite on “hopelessly devoted to you” that it makes me mad. 

It took me four days to get through this record. I just never ever wanted to return to it. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/soul-kiss/1444061353