Olivia Newton-John - Soul Kiss (1985)

The 2nd single - "Toughen Up", a Tina Turner rejected song.

Soo 80s!!!! From Soul Kiss.... "Culture Shock".

No, "Making A Good Thing Better" was a flop.

"Soul Kiss" had a lot of problems, first she was trying to be "Queen of Kink" and too old to pull it off, something Sheena Easton did manage as well as Madonna. Second was the song itself was horrible, it sounds like it was two songs thrown together. You'd swear between the verses and the chorus and the bridge someone changed radio stations on you.

It's odd because Rolling Stone gave it a great review much better than her sugary but better selling albums. The only good song on the LP was her remake of "The Right Moment," though "Overnight Observation," was good as a comic song, or whatever you call them.

[quote]The 2nd single - "Toughen Up", a Tina Turner rejected song.

Which is interesting because Tina's "comeback" single "What's Love Got To Do With It" was written for Olivia's friend Cliff Richard who rejected it.

I liked Soul Kiss when I was a kid.

Olivia was 37 when Soul Kiss came out. Perhaps too old to be "miss kink".

My favorite track on the album was "Electric" which is the b-side to "Soul Kiss". It appears on the import version of the CD.

It was ONJ's attempt to court the Madonna audience without understanding that M's music was actually really good. Soul Kiss is not a good record and even the title song is all production, no Olivia.

I don't think she was too old to pull it off -- she was younger than Tina Turner -- but it just didn't really suit her.

She looks like a Wolverhampton housewife over done-up for a rare night out.

I don't know if anyone could've uplifted that material though.

Her post "Grease" choices were poor. No direction.

Then she got cancer.

[quote]No, "Making A Good Thing Better" was a flop.

It was, but I love several songs on it. And Olivia is gorgeous on the cover.

I was 25 years old when it was released and had loved ONJ since Physical and that video with the transformation into sexy boys . I excitedly made my way to the record store within days of its release, picked up the album and took it to the cashier who was a 20-something young woman with pink and blue hair and a safety pin through her nose. When I placed the album on the counter, she scornfully looked at the cover photo of Olivia and then back at me and told me 'You do know, don't you - that this is an example of pornographic explotation of women?!" At the time didn't have to balls to explain to her that the picture definitely did NOT arouse any pornographic feelings in me.

Soul Kiss probably saved my life, or at least kept me from being injured.

In 1986, I was moving from Boston to LA and my brother was driving with me across the country. To save money, we were driving in shifts with the other sleeping. The tape player in my car was broken and since we were in the middle of nowhere Texas at the time (in the middle of the night) nothing was coming in on the radio.

I was listening to Soul Kiss on my brother’s Walk-Man. I must have started to nod off while listening to “Driving Music” because when the truck passes loudly at the end of the song it woke me up as the car was heading towards the guard rail. Thank god my brother was still asleep and didn’t see it, but it scared the shit out of me and kept me awake until he took over the driving.

R11, Slow Dancin is a great vocal and you wouldn't believe how many people think her version of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" is one of, if not THE best.

I hope she's not suffering too much.

I think Olivia looks like Dale Bozzio from Missing Persons on the front cover of the album.

Never realized how Taylor Swift-y she looks. she's the original of course

Olivia's sexy phase lasted several years. This was the sexiest she had been.

This was a Soul Kiss album promo shot. Looks kind of Mad Max'y to me.

I had the sheet music for Soul Kiss. Loved playing it on the piano when I was twelve!

"Queen Of The Publication" is the campiest song on the album - and my favorite.

I also love "Electric."

Oliva (a.k.a. Dale Bozzio from Missing Persons)

Wasn't Olivia pregnant with Chloe in most of the 'Soul Kiss' photos?

And, yes, "Driving Music" is a fantastic song!

yeah, she was pregnant with chloe during the music videos made for soul kiss. not sure for the helmut newton photo shoot though. i personally like her song 'car games' from the rumour album better than 'driving music' from soul kiss.

I much prefer this version of Olivia:

Will I get down on my knees (and thank you baby)?

I really liked this album at the time. Now? Not as much. Contains a truly awful song "You Were Great, How Was I?".

There should be a Jukebox Musical with all of her hit songs, even the 1980s ones with Travolta like Take a Chance

This is really the one thing that mattered post "Let's Get Physical" period, imho.

I love "Soul Kiss." The whole cadence of it is beautiful and groovy -- I never even paid attention to the lyrics.

But I want to know why Newton-John allegedly doesn't perform this song at concerts anymore.

On the "Should I go to the Olivia Newton-John Concert" Thread, the OP (probably our OP), claimed Newton-John has refused to perform this song for years.

Where is the proof and why won't she?

I guess because the song sucks.

You can find Olivia on YouTube singing Soul Kiss at a fairly recent concert.

The blonde leading the bland.

She makes Janet Jackson sound like Jessye Norman.

I remember hearing this debuted on the morning radio show we'd listen to on the way to school. The DJs mocked it pretty mercilessly and suggested it was about oral sex (the repeated 'get down on my knees' line I guess.)

Dl's resident eldergay community never fails to amuse me with their shitty taste in music.

I'm a big Olivia fan and this is an awful record. My least favorite of hers.

She released lots of great pop trash from 74 to 84, but by "Soul Kiss" the party was over.

"A Little More Love" is her best.

I love the song, which was another one rejected by Tina Turner. The rest of the album is a textbook example of bad 80's music and videos. If she wasn't preggers, had a not so sexy album cover and some better material, the album may have cracked the top 10.

I couldn't get into this one. I think this came right after the "Twist Of Fate" soundtrack which had great ONJ songs, even with Travolta stinking up the place "Take A Chance" was a lovely, listenable ballad.

I came here hoping to have a brilliant insight, thinking that un-sexying these songs with Sarah Cracknell /Saint Etienne might be brilliant and pop-heaven. Then I listened to the damn things and felt awful for being stupid enough to think Saint Etienne could transform absolute garbage into something lovely.

This music is horrid; the lyrics are gross and puerile.

Horrible!

I love the song. Or at least the sound of it. It's got a sleazy groove, and the production and vocals are so bright and layered, you know everyone was on coke when they mixed it. And the reverb delay on the drums and those crazy synthesized bell chimes. Plus the album cover photos were by Helmut Newton. The album isn't great though, unlike the Physical album which is a pop kitsch masterpiece.

I always liked Soul Kiss.

R39 is right. "Twist of Fate" and "Living in Desperate Times" were good 80s pop and we were waiting for her next album hoping it would be a continuation, but it just wasn't that good and she missed the mark. Madonna had shocked us with the surprise of "Into the Groove" and left a lot of female artists in the dust...

To me her look and image at the time were the closest she got to showing off the "real Olivia". It's amazing how two years of motherhood changed her. Her Australiana and new age period were right around the corner, when being a good role model was obviously big on her mind. I think the composition and production on this record is fine, way better than most of that era. I hate that she's trying to sound so "edgy" and hard though, the lovely warm quality is missing from her vocals on these tracks.

What r33 said. Olivia was never much of a vocalist. Auto tune helped her. Just like it has helped Paula Abdul, Jabba and Rihanna. And Britney Spears as well.

R45= Stockard Channing, two-time failed tv star.

R46-ONJ, whose film career went the way of her virginity, and just as quickly...

You got me Stockard. I didn't land roles in the Oscar-nominated and summer blockbusters films Staying Together, The Men's Club and Meet the Applegates like you did.

Be kind to Olivia. She's terminally ill with cancer, you know.

Is it the quick acting kind r49?

no she's doing much better, actually.

No, she is terminal. This summer it spread to her sacrum, which makes it Stage IV, which is terminal.

well olivia says she's better and has returned to the concert stage.

Olivia Newton-John has returned to commanding the stage on tour amid her cancer relapse – a sign of progress for the star, who says that not long ago she couldn’t even walk.

“I can walk, but I can’t go long distances,” Newton-John revealed in a new interview with Australia’s 60 Minutes, as excerpted by Entertainment Tonight. “But I’ll get there, because I couldn’t walk at all a month or so ago.”

In May, doctors diagnosed Newton-John with breast cancer that had metastasized to the sacrum. The star initially postponed the first half of her concert tour because of severe back pain from what she thought was sciatica, but further tests discovered it was actually cancer that spread.

The 68-year-old said that the “hardest thing” has been her pain level, admitting that trying to do shows was “really agonizing.”

Now, she’s been treating the pain with medical marijuana her husband John Easterling grows.

“I’ll be fine,” said Newton-John. “There have been a lot of women who have had reoccurrences and continue on with their lives to be old ladies, and that’s my vision.”

Soul Kiss the song was pretty great, but the album was C-. Her next album, The Rumor, if it had been released at the time Soul Kiss was, would have been a bigger hit. By the time 88 rolled around, it was much too dated, even though it contained some of her best vocals in some time. The title track, written (and backing vocals) by Elton John was a should-have-been hit. Tutta La Vita was a great song, and her version of Talk it Over (titled here Can't We Talk it Over in Bed) was also pretty great.

I prefer most of her 70s catalog but nothing bad to say about her. Her music has brought me a lot of joy. I wish her continued health.

I find it difficult to listen to almost anything from the 80s (including Madonna) because of all the cheesy synthesizers. There is no depth to sound.

My "Dialing the phone with a pencil" confession:

My mother had the cassette of "Soul Kiss" when I was a kid. I would sneak it down to her office in the basement and develop a dance routine to "Queen of the Publication."

It involved me spinning on an office chair and pretending to type. I would also wear reading classes that, of course, would be thrown off during the key change in the song. Paper would be dramatically pulled out of the typewriter, and I obviously had to have the big finish splayed on the desk in what I thought was a sexy way.

How I didn't wind up a drag queen, I have no idea.

Thanks to whoever linked to the song above....haven't heard it in years.

The pic in OP's post looks like a female impersonator of a "certain age."

Please tell me you videotaped those routines, r58! And did mom ever catch you? Adorable story. Thanks for sharing!

I was a younger gayling at the time and already infatuated with her, so Soul Kiss was hot stuff to me. You're all a bunch of stuffy old farts.

[quote] I was a younger gayling at the time and already infatuated with her, so Soul Kiss was hot stuff to me. You're all a bunch of stuffy old farts.

I was, also, R61, and I also loved it. But I have news for you- you and I are both old farts.

I think Soul Kiss is some of her best work. With the exception of "you were great, how was I" I still love most of the songs. But I think the true Olivia was closer to her pre Grease transformation and Soul Kiss was one step too far and felt inauthentic.

Soul Kiss was a soul miss but I think it would have been interesting to see what she could have created if she kept heading in that direction as opposed to going all new age/save the planet. That shit really killed her career.

I loved how she looked in Physical and Soul Kiss, dated as they are now. When she went all new age she went all Mumsy too with the hair and make-up.

It’s a method album

the song "Soul Kiss" was hot on the charts at this time of year way back in 1985. It wasn't a top 10 but a top 20. It got a lot of airplay on the top 40 radio station I used to listen to when I was a kid. I remember seeing the video on MTV too.

This just missed the top-ten down under, placing at number #11. Olivia's next top ten hit in Australia would be almost a decade later, with the new age album Gaia: One Woman's Journey, to whom Olivia dedicated "Gaia (guy-ya) the spirit of Mother Earth".

R67 Would that had the fevered imagination to think of something so dull.

[quote][R46]-ONJ, whose film career went the way of her virginity, and just as quickly...

You're welcome for introducing you to Allan Carr. Sorry Jeff and Rona didn't work out.

[quote]But I think the true Olivia was closer to her pre Grease transformation and Soul Kiss was one step too far and felt inauthentic.

Correct. Olivia was trying to be a sexpot which she could not pull off. Sheena Easton was at the same time doing the exact same thing and being 11 years her junior could do it, then add Madonna being more sexual and the cause was lost.

Olivia the #1 solo female artist of the 70s was suffering from the same burnout that hit Diana Ross the #2 female solo artist of the 70s, they got old and lost interest.

Add to Olivia had a baby and a clothing store she totally lost interest in music.

I read in an interview before her release of her country "Back With A Heart" album in the late 90s, that one of the reasons she recorded it was her daughter Chloe had a project where the kids had to write about their parent's careers and her daughter asked her what she did and she said "What? I'm a singer."

Then she said "It was then I realized I was a singer who doesn't sing anymore."

This is why women in all careers generally fall behind because they take time off for children and they don't want to go back to work unless really necessary.

I love Soul Kiss. It's darker than the average female pop album of this period, which is quite surprising, considering it was released by ONJ, of all people.

The title track, in particular, is a sultry gem (and its extended version is quite cool as well).

I love ONJ. Twist of Fate is my favorite, maybe because it came out around the time I got my driver’s license and first car. It was a beat up old Datsun with a cassette player. I basically had four tapes: the Two of A Kind soundtrack, Bella Donna, Branigan 2, and Beauty & the Beat. Fun memories.

I must be misremembering, but I thought the album wasn't as successful because at the time it dropped and she began a tour for it, she experienced her first round of health issues and had to bow out to start her treatments? Without that promotion, as a result, there wasn't enough of a push to make this hit (?).

I’m really good at identifying voices. The first time I heard Soul Kiss, I said omg, that sounds like Peg Bundy on backing vocals. And sure enough, it was! I had no idea she sang at all. I liked the album, bought it based on Rolling Stone’s review (also Eaten Alive by Diana). I love the title track, & that video! Matt was such a hottie.

I like the music video mainly because her husband Matt was in it. He was so hot.

R73 She got pregnant during its recording. If you watch the music videos of this era, you can notice they tried to disguise her belly with oversized clothes. That also meant no concert tour, and not even a single televised performance. The first time she sang a song from Soul Kiss live was in 2010. What you're describing happened in the early 1990s, when she was releasing a greatest hits album.

Here's the full Soul Kiss "video album". MCA planned to make music videos for all of the album's tracks, just like happened with Physical, each one with a little plot. Due her pregnancy, they recorded only 5 (simpler) videos. It also includes some short interview bits with Olivia.