Olivia Newton-John - PHYSICAL

Wow, this is a great read on PHYSICAL.

I thought she was saying "Let's drink fizzy cola"

What was I thinking?

Her career fizzled out after Physical. She never had another big hit or album. But her iconic run with the Xanadu soundtrack and Physical album was a big part of my childhood years.

Madonna came on the scene after Physical and ended Olivia's reign.

The video for "Physical" and it's surprise twist gay ending, was so hot.

[quote]Her career fizzled out after Physical. She never had another big hit or album.

Heart Attack went to #3 in the U.S. and Twist of Fate went to #5, both from albums released after Physical.

Physical IS a great album!

They so radically changed her image and sound, though, that when that sound went out of style a few years later, her hits dried up.

She really didn't get on the late 80s dance stuff and sort of went back to her older sound - which was fine, but wasn't going to land her on the radio.

I thought she was poised for a comeback in 1988 with the Elton John-written and produced single "The Rumour," from the (very good) album of the same name. But the pop parade had passed her by. The single went to #1 in Finland, though, so there's that.

R1 thanks for that link. I have always loved this album and really enjoyed this article.

She got married, had a family and retired from touring during this period as she put her career on the back burner.

Soul Kiss was barely promoted and both single and album went top forty.

R5, Heart Attack and Twist of Fate were not really big hits. They were more like the last gasps of her pop career.

Michael Jackson's Thriller album was released the year after Physical, and then Madonna came on the scene. Olivia's reign was over at that point.

[quote]Heart Attack and Twist of Fate were not really big hits. They were more like the last gasps of her pop career.

The Rumour was the last gasp. Per Billboard, Heart Attack and Twist of Fate are the 10th and 11th biggest singles of her career, ahead of such hits as Summer Nights, If You Love Me Let Me Know and Xanadu.

Madonna pretty much ended the reign of most of the female performers who were big in the late 70s and early 80s.

R12, Madonna was massive, but so were Whitney, Janet Jackson and Tina Turner during this time. They all thrived. And then Mariah came on the scene in the early 90s.

There's always room for more than one King Kong in the music business. Even Prince was as big as Michael Jackson during that time.

I love her big hit after Physical “Make A Move On Me”.

Never got the appeal of this song. Any track from the Xanadu soundtrack is better than this one.

AGAIN, Olivia put her career on hold to get married and start a family.

Part of the reason her career declined was because of her own doing, as she admitted in her recent autobiography. She wanted to focus on being a wife and managing her own business by the mid 80's. She admits that during this time her music career was not a top priority. She was even considering a full retirement from the music business in the mid 90's.

I thought it was very naughty. It came out around the same time as Centerfold by the J. Geils Band, and I was convinced every song was about sex that everybody but me was having.

"Physical"...God, what an awful song. It was supposed to SO titillating": "let's get physical, physical, let me hear your body talk"...blech. Little Olivia Newton John trying to be sexy.

I wasn’t born yet.

The album cover Madonna ripped off. Both shot by Herb Ritts.

I bought the VHS of the PHYSICAL video album in May 1982 and became obsessed with Matt Lattanzi!

PHYSICAL album faves of mine are:

LANDSLIDE

SILVERY RAIN

RECOVERY

STRANGER'S TOUCH (that guy is HOT in the video, too!)

What do I find so appealing in stealing?

Such a great song and Olivia is just great. Madonna did end many careers for females but I think Olivia was done just a tad before Madonna. Though a comeback was made more difficult. There were some big females in the 80's but Madonna broke that glass ceiling hard which helped all of them. Madonna selling was out of this world for a long stretch. MJ also took up so much oxygen in the early 80's. Olivia seemed bland after Physical. But it was such a risque' departure for her. I loved it!

I loved the voices singing to each other in the choruses.

We have some major fans of other diva trolls on this thread (not talking about Madonna fans as they aren't attacking any other female artists).

Soul Kiss is a far more bolder album than Physical, with Olivia singing about blow jobs and threesomes and pondering how great a lay she was in a duet with a Beach Boys. It was her Erotica long before the other one released hers.

It was so cool to watch Olivia perform this on the 1982 PHYSICAL tour!

Speaking of SOUL KISS, this is my favorite from that 1985 album.

Some queen did a great job of taking other videos and making one for this fun song.

Olivia could have easily progressed into a more Adult contemporary format in the 80's and been successful at it had she wanted to go that route.

But by that point, MCA didn't seem to know what to do with her. The Rumour is a great album and a great title single, but it's similarity to Elton John's "I Don't want to go on with you like that" released around the same time killed its chances on pop radio.

My favourite Olivia song is form Late 1983/Early 1984:

I could so see Olivia singing Crazy For You. I like both Madonna and Olivia and would have loved for them to have been big in the later 80's.

That hairstyle during her 1982 tour R27 was the epitome of edgy style at that time. I remember being obsessed with it. Of course that scene near the end of the Physical video...I felt so wrong watching it as a repressed young gayling at the time.

She looked very butch during the Physical era, which is when the lesbian rumors started.

Do you remember her Koala Blue stores that she opened that sold products from Australia? One opened in my city, but it went out of business after only one year. I bet she lost a fortune when those stores shut down.

[quote]She looked very butch during the Physical era, which is when the lesbian rumors started.

No, the rumors started several years earlier, after an appearance on Johnny Carson's show.

I thought she would have rode the Grease fame to greater success. Especially after Physical was huge. She just fizzled out whether for family (what a dumb move at the time) or others eclipsed her (namely Madonna's omnipotence and omnipresence).

Dancing to "Physical" in a disco in Philadelphia in 1982....good times.

Saw her Physical Tour on a gorgeous summer night in Queens NY at the Tennis Stadium. Remember, she was diagnosed with cancer the first time in 92, was really sick and out of commission for a few years that decade.

She introduced this on the Physical Tour and there was dancing in the aisle.

I recalled that her career was interrupted during that time because she first became ill, and she needed to get out of the spotlight and take care of that instead.

Well, this happened to her in 1984...

When was Magic? I really liked that song and the period for ONJ. I think 1982 right?

That hairstyle at R27 was called the FemmeMullet. All the girls had them in the early to mid-80's. Then after, all the girls looked like poodles.

Soul Kiss was a much better album IMO.

Here's The Physical Tour in '82. Just her, a band and some back-ups. No twenty dancers, huge sets moving about distracting. Just her singing.

r43 Most people have spectacles even back then. Fireworks, gyrating and all that shit. It has nothing to do with talent or lack of.

Olivia went through more changes than most artists. She started as a folksy-type singer with her first hit "If Not For You". Then she seemed to go the country route with "Let Me Be There" and "If You Love Me, Let Me Know". Then she went pop balladeer with Song of the Year "I Honestly Love You" and "Have You Never Been Mellow". Her image changed with "A Little More Love", which tried to slut-ton her up. Then of course came Grease. The movie Xanadu was a dud, but it gave her the second biggest song of her career "Magic". Of course, then came the 80s, and lots of hits like "Physical", "Heart Attack" "Make A Move On Me" and "Twist Of Fate"

Every once in a while, I watch the YouTube video of Olivia dancing with Gene Kelly in Xanadu. She's pretty good for someone with no experience.

I'd hadn't seen the video clip for Physical since its release. The year before last I was in Portugal for a holiday and one of our stops was a couple of days in Fatima. We were having dinner in one of the few restaurants open and they had a TV playing with video clips playing. One of them was Physical - it was so funny seeing the clip again and at Fatima of all places.

I thought the lesbian rumors were just based on the Johnny Carson comment until I started reading some of the threads on this board. I wonder if Olivia is bi.

R41 Olivia never had the greatest luck with hair. But you're correct, it was popular for a time. I present these two:

[quote]Most people have spectacles even back then. Fireworks, gyrating and all that shit. It has nothing to do with talent or lack of.

Uh huh.

Were any of the studs in Physical well known at the time?

R50 They were well known to the director’s back account. Really, I wonder if they were recruited off the set of Cant Stop the Music.

Blech, what a hideous era for headbands, lycra, and what a terrible segue from the disco decade.

[quote] The video for "Physical" and it's surprise twist gay ending,

Oh, dear!

Olivia was never a touring force. I doubt she ever made more than $20 million on a tour.

When people pay a lot for a concert ticket, they want a big show. Olivia was fairly boring in concert.

She also starred with John Travolta in a movie.

You may have heard of it ....... [italic] Grease ?

R41 Magic was 1980 (another huge number 1). Olivia was huge after Grease. Her last top 10 was Twist Of Fate in 1984. It was amazing the staying power of Physical in late 81 early 82. A number 1 song for 10 weeks was kind of rare in those days. I think a lot of fraus bought the single to exercise to it that helped it stay at number 1.

One of my favorite songs of hers is A Little More Love.

She has a lot of success, considering that she was never much of a singer. Her voice was high pitched and squeaky. Not extremely pleasant to listen to.

R58 is Sheena Easton.

Very sexy album cover.

I sang "The Dolphin Song" for my talent when I competed in the Mr. Gay USA contest. I won, too.

[quote]She has a lot of success, considering that she was never much of a singer. Her voice was high pitched and squeaky. Not extremely pleasant to listen to.

Well the millions who bought her records might not agree.

"Well the millions who bought her records might not agree."

It's not unheard of for someone without much singing talent to have a successful career. Ever heard of Madonna?

[quote] I sang "The Dolphin Song" for my talent when I competed in the Mr. Gay USA contest. I won, too.

MARY x 1000!!!

Long mullet.

Is this a former love?

Even though her big songs were "Magic" and "Physical",I think she was more in her element with ballads like "Sam" and the duet with Cliff Richard "Suddenly".

So I just listened to the Physical album for the first time in 35 years. Man, it really aged like milk. Physical is the only good song on the album and the rest is second-rate filler.

Carried Away was a reject from Streisand's Guilty album. I can see why Barbra rejected it.

No. "Carried Away" is gorgeous in the right hands.

Will a little more love make it right?

It gets me nowhere to tell you no, r70.

Physical was never one of my favorites. I don't know if because it was played to death in my youth or what. I much prefer the jazzercise anthem Twist of Fate or the VERY underrated Tied Up. I even prefer Soul Kiss to Physical.

Do you prefer "Toughen Up"?