What is your favorite of Paula Abdul’s 8 Top 10 Hits?

This ho had 8 top ten hits? Just kidding but it just shows you the ficklneess of pop music. And how arbitrary success is and relative to the type of artist. Legendary bands like Green Day don't even have 5 top 10 hits.

Straight Up is one the greatest 80s song ever.

JEFFREY! Jeffery, people should appreciate me for the gift that I am.

Technically, "(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me" should come between "Cold Hearted" and "Opposites Attract" in OP's list -- the first release in 1988 flopped, peaking at #88, then "Straight Up" rocketed up to #1, followed by "Forever Your Girl" and "Cold Hearted," whereupon "(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me" was re-released, at which point it ascended to #3.

Straight Up was my favorite, but I also liked Cold Hearted and Opposites Attract.

I’ll always have a fondness for “Knocked Out”. I love the song and my late nephew is in the video.

R5 I forgot to identify myself. I’m russdog.

All within 2-3 yrs

Love both Straight Up and Cold Hearted, but if I had to pick one I would probably pick Cold Hearted for the faux violin, keyboard synthesizer bit of the song.

This was a very important three years for me, spanning junior high, so her music defines the time when I was first realizing I was gay - she was my first faggy pop diva obsession. I still know every word to the rap battle between her and MC Skat Kat in "Opposites Attract" - it's a karaoke staple

Proof that any pretty whore can be made into a popstar. Has she ever been on-key?

The fact that Paula Abdul had 6 #1 hits is proof that Americans are trash.

I meant to post this UK mix version of Knocked Out. My nephew is the Black boxer.

8 hits and she can't sing a note but she was unintentionally hilarious as that talent show judge.

That girl gave a new meaning to train wreck. Comedy gold.

But hey, Madonna and Katy Perry can't sing either so why not?

She only had 3 studio albums. She’s had a very interesting career

Paula Abdul has TWO Emmy Awards on her shelf

I also always loved Rush Rush. It’s very pretty.

r13 In the day, she was beloved for having as much energy as any mall rat pop singer at the time. . . while looking more like the strip mall across the tracks.

She's always been a guilty pleasure for most, though. The kind of singer that across genre subcultures, everyone in the day knew one of her songs to sing along. And it helped she was a lakers' girl. . . which, of course, made her cheerleading gold across the nation.

I suggest then r17 you check out the footage of her last cancelled tour.

The Ashley Simpson level lip synch and the botched choreography are classic.

She even falls off the stage. No bystanders were hurt though .

Drugs are bad.

B5: I picked, "Straight Up", but "Knocked Out" is my favorite track of hers.

r18 I said back in the day.

because to understand her original success is to understand why she was popular in the beginning and not reflecting from what followed after.

Yes. This is your favorite of those 8. Not favorite of hers all together. Knocked Out is cool.

I never realized the Rush Rush video was doing Rebel Without a Cause until now. Keanu never ages

I always liked her 1995 single "My Love Is For Real," but it was completely out of step with pop music at the time and tanked.

r18 her nationwide popularity was largely because she was a cheerleader and her songs were clean enough for most high schools... which meant she was was repeatedly played at virtually every school game. . . thus virtually everyone in the day knew one of her songs, wasn't just because of videos or radio play but just wider playability in general. It was inescapable.

I'd place Ms. Abdul more in the category of the mall performers for that reason, even though I don't recall her playing at any. It was largely an untapped way of moving up the charts. A comparable act would be The Jets... though by the 90s, they would largely head into becoming more known and associated with producing jingles and theme songs, though they would still release albums and tour. . . they were much more than just the music industry.

Does anybody who subscribed to The New Yorker in the late 80s early 90s recall they had a music critic who died very young in the early 90s? Can't recall his name now; I want to say that he lived in Boston and was apparently terminally ill and somehow finagled a job writing about pop music for The New Yorker. Anyway, I have distinct memory of reading a column by him in the spring of 1989 where he wrote about Paula Abdul's "Straight Up," raving about it, something along of the lines of "it's one of those songs where you actually search the radio to find it playing."

Love that elongated video for Promise Of A New Day. A new day when the trees can be skinny.

R23 the 80s weren’t streaming age. Her hits weren’t streamed. They were #1 because people BOUGHT THEM. You had to BUY the single for it to chart. Playing it in a mall doesn’t make it chart.

You clearly don’t know what you’re speaking of.

Straight guys found her incredibly sexy

If you were a successful female pop star in the 80s it was because the girls loved you/idolized you and the dudes wanted to bone you. Her, Madonna, Tiffany etc. all were attractive young women.

R22, I thought that was a good single, too

Her song “Crazy Cool” from her 3rd (and final) studio album was good.

That album came out 4 years after her previous one, and she clearly wanted to mature her sound. The album is adult pop, which just didn’t get people interested when it came to her. She was trying to sound like Madonna a bit. But this is good.

I never can remember who sang what in "her" "hits," so it's hard to say.

R30 here. She also looked so beautiful during that time period.

Whatever happened to Emilio Estevez? What's that dude's deal?

Her career never fully recovered from that scandal regarding not properly crediting another singer as co-lead vocal on the Spellbound album. The singer claimed so much of her background vocals were mixed with Paula’s to shore up Paula’s supposedly weak voice, that it amounted to a co-lead as opposed to a backup vocal. Poor Paula had to give a press conference to defend herself. The Milli Vanilli scandal of the same era didn’t help matters.

R10 = Pebbles

She released the wrong singles from Head Over Heels. She should've released Under The Influence

And The Choice Is Yours

I loved Next To You, one of like 2 songs that wasn't a single from Forever Your Girl.

Ed.win the seacow do you jiggle your tits to cold hearted?