Olivia Newton-John

Physical

I'm cursed....

Review Score:

(4/10)
What is it, exactly, about music you heard when you were young? Whether you loved it, loved it only secretly, or hated it, you are doomed to revisit it. So with me and Olivia Newton-John's "Physical," an album both like and unlike anything else in her output to that point. My sister had this album when I was just a kid, and I don't remember thinking too highly of it as she played it. No matter--to this day, this album can still play out in my head whenever I want, and sometimes when I don't.

In any case, "Physical" was something of a marketing ploy for Newton-John, who to that point had largely confined herself and her wispy, waifish, debatably overpretty voice, to monster hits characterized by pseudo-country flavorings and often painfully affected innocence ("Have You Never Been Mellow," "I Honestly Love You," etc.) For this album, her fans were asked to swallow a newer and marginally more sexual image. It would have worked, but the title tune was badly overplayed, which placed Newton-John in direct competition with innumerable other female singers who could emote sexuality with a little more sincerity. Perhaps abetted by a (inadvertently?) campy video, and by endless repetition in aerobics classes nationwide, "Physical" is perhaps now more commonly associated with the early 80s fitness fad, and stands as something of a novelty tune.

That's too bad, since some other tracks on this album are more worthwhile. "Stranger's Touch" beats out "Physical" as the one track in Newton-John's entire output where she really _does_ sound sexy, while "Make a Move on Me" comes close in the verses, and is only undone by the sing-songy chorus (still, a nice hook) and a cheesy introductory synth riff. "Silvery Rain" is high on studio-effect-mediated atmosphere, but don't pay too much attention to the lyrics, which introduce Newton-John's ongoing strain of simplistic environmentalism (I lean strongly left on environmental issues, personally, but I find most celebrity forays into the topic to be largely naive and silly). "Recovery" and the other tracks are more typical of her earlier output, but the album as a whole sounds different, perhaps due to a persistent studio-distorted or -reverbed acoustic guitar present on most of the tracks.

"Physical" stands as Newton-John's most interesting _sound_, and includes some of her best vocals. That this places her squarely in the middle of the heap of female pop vocalists should prevent no one from sampling its guilty pleasures.

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