Olivia Newton-John - Physical

For a dollar I'll buy pretty much anything if it strikes my fancy. Olivia Newton-John had a remarkable career, first with her country era, then her silver screen turns. She played Sandy Black Tights in Grease which was a hit, although I hated it on principal at the time. But dagnabbit, those pants. Then there was the movie no one saw, Xanadu but everyone heard songs from the soundtrack on the radio.

Then came the sweaty headband and the song radio would ... not ... stop ... playing. "Physical" I mean it was everywhere, and it was everywhere for what seemed like FOREVER. I'm sure this was the evil origin story of The Leg Warmer Invasion. Jane Fonda entered the fray, and then suddenly we were glued to the TV watching The 20 Minute Workout, where the women were all able to place their palms on the floor and look directly at you while they had their backsides facing the camera.

Yeah, the '80s. Raise your glass, they were the best of times ... they were the best of times.

Even back then I had to reluctantly give the title track some props. I mean, it was catchy AF, and Steve Lukather and David Hungate played on the song, and according to the credits Carlos Vega played a hubcap. It's still an earworm of the first order.

I actually find it sort of hard to be objective listening to this. My first inclination was to just be a smart ass and make as many pithy comments as I could. I even had my opening salvo loaded:

"I try to be a glass half full kind of guy, but when it's almost overflowing with shit it'd take more than just holding my nose and swallowing to get through this." 

Heck the first time through, I was already starting to lose my vitriol. Oh make no mistake this is not, and will never be my jam ... but dude, this is (was, rest in peace) Olivia Newton-John and whether you like her or not, you have to give the lady her due, and what she was due is respect. When she was good she was really really good. 

For an album that was controversial at the time for it's perceived sexual content and her movement away from anything resembling country that fully embraced the transitional shimmering pop that bridged the late 70's and early '80s it is a decidedly middle of the road affair that is calculated and frankly safe with few surprises. Of course much of my opinion is based on decades of baggage and the ensuing passage of time that has given me an unfair vantage point with which to process what I'm hearing.

Sex sells, and Olivia was going to sell, and boy did people buy. Physical sold over 400,000 copies in Canada, went double platinum in the US and when the dust settled there were over 4,000,000 satisfied customers. If they weren't satisfied did it matter - they still paid. 

Part of me wants to dismiss this as sexualized middle of the road pop ... but, that's not right. There wasn't a lot of music that sounded like this, yet. John Farrar, who had produced Olivia since the early '70s was still very much the anchor on the album. Writing or co-writing many of the tracks, as well as playing bass, guitar and some keyboards.

There were a couple of songs that I came back to, which I wasn't expecting. The first one that really caught my attention, and that was because it was on the first side, actually the last song on the first side, was "Love Make Me Strong" written by Terry Britten and Sue Shifrin. I actually checked the credits to see if Alan Tarney had contributed to this one. Terry and Alan both worked with Cliff Richard but I think I was picking up on something that wasn't there. The other song that seemed to emerge after a couple of spins was "Silvery Rain" written in the early '70s by Hank Marvin, who also worked with Cliff Richard and was the lead guitar player of The Shadows. This is an intricate and dreamy pop song that ebbs and flows building and releasing tension. The guitar work by John Farrar is so good, but what makes the song pop is the acoustic bridge. I know it's really not that complicated and it's merely a series of staccato chords being finger plucked, but boy howdy when something works it doesn't have to be fancy, just tasty.  

The centrepiece here is "Physical" which frankly is to be expected. It's the most recognizable song on the record, and I had not other expectations. I paid a buck for the one song and was totally fine if the rest of the album was silly kitschy nonsense. Although hearing Olivia do a Barry Gibb impression as she sang his composition "Carried Away" while John Farrar seemed to be providing the other brothers backing vocals was kind of odd, but not horrible either ... and I was looking for at least one terrible song that I could at least tie back to my glass half full shot. Sadly no. 

Well, that's not entirely true, if there's an odd duck on the record it's the one song she actually wrote: "The Promise (The Dolphin Song)" closes the album, which is probably where it needed to be. It's not quite a throwaway track. She's got something to say and it's sort of her Olivia Eco-Warrior Woman moment, where she gets to sing with dolphins. It's not as bad as I'm making it out to be ... but it's not really a song you need to hear more than once, and I've heard it over and over as I'm too lazy to get up and pick up the needle. 

This isn't a record that will come out that often because it really just isn't a style of music I put on very often. However, this was a lot more enjoyable than I expected, and I got way more value from this than the dollar I paid to bring it home. Oh I don't feel bad paying a dollar. Back in '81 the chances of me paying anything for this was pretty much zero. 

The contents of the glass never changed. All I had to do was let it settle for a while. Who knows, maybe the glass was half full after all.