You've got to get it right

February 25, 2018 12:44 PM

Paula Abdul parlayed her experience choreographing music videos for a lot of 80s powerhouses into putting out an album of her own which was a giant hit in 1988: Forever Your Girl [~44m]. Side A: The Way That You Love Me [video], Knocked Out [video], Opposites Attract [video], State Of Attraction, I Need You

Side B: Forever Your Gir [video], Straight Up [video], Next To You, Cold Hearted [video], One Or The Other

posted by hippybear (36 comments total)

Obligatory: Paula Abdul vs. MC Skat Kat: A Comparative Analysis of 'Opposites Attract'
posted by box at 12:46 PM on February 25, 2018 [11 favorites]

Supplementary material: Listen to the Shut Up and Dance Mixes remixed version of all of this. I still have that tape. Soooooooo good!
posted by limeonaire at 12:57 PM on February 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

I love this album.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 1:29 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

This album was the fucking jam for six year old me. Paula Abdul was the coolest and I remember me and my friends trying to learn all her dance moves and being scandalized by her video for Cold Hearted Snake. Plus Opposites Attract had an animated kitty! This album was like designed to appeal to the dna inside small girls. Off to stream this on spotify.
posted by supercrayon at 1:40 PM on February 25, 2018 [9 favorites]

I'm not that big of a fan, but I still like "Straight Up" quite a lot. Shame that the videos don't seem to be the originals, though, as her dance performances were a big chunk of their appeal.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:29 PM on February 25, 2018

Oh, wait--here's "Straight Up."
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:31 PM on February 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

okay reporting back, Forever Your Girl is exactly the right album (both mood and length-wise) to do your gardening to. Cheers hippybear, my morning had way more saxophone than expected.
posted by supercrayon at 2:33 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was 10 years old in 1988 and Paula Abdul was one of the first pop stars I got into on my own terms (ie, not my parents' music). I can't hear any of her songs without seeing, in my mind's eye, the bubblegum-pink boom box I had (this one!), covered with stickers. I used to play tapes on that boom box (and, of course, tape songs off the radio - WZOU Boston was my station) over and over again, and this one got intense rotation.

I thought she was so cool and fun and stylish and such a great dancer. My friends and I choreographed a dance routine to "Cold Hearted Snake" (and the Right Stuff by NKOTB, of course) that we performed for our parents on my friend's trampoline.

Oh, also, when she lists off all those glamorous places she and her lover would go in "The Way That You Love Me" (French Riviera, Bahamas, Monaco) - pretty sure those are still lodged in my psyche as the coolest, most cosmopolitan places a person could go.
posted by lunasol at 2:38 PM on February 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

"Straight Up" is the one with the most memorable hook, imo.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:41 PM on February 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

Confirming that as good as the original album is, the Shut Up and Dance mixes are even more amazing.
posted by lieber hair at 2:56 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love "Straight Up."
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:15 PM on February 25, 2018

I still have a crush on Paula. She may have been my first crush, lol. I remember being slightly embarrassed to like her music because it was "girly".

I still remember the words to all those songs.
posted by panama joe at 3:17 PM on February 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

THEY WERE CATCHY, OKAY?
posted by panama joe at 3:17 PM on February 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

12 yo me moved from a rural area to a city and Paula Abdul was my introduction to 24/7 music videos. Hnnnng!
posted by furtive at 3:42 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

I still have a crush on Paula. She may have been my first crush, lol

My best friend in elementary school had a poster of Paula Abdul that he kissed every night before bed.

“Straight Up” really is a great song.
posted by uncleozzy at 3:51 PM on February 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

“Straight Up” is easily one of my favourite 80s pop hits. From a songwriter’s perspective it’s EXTREMELY well written & arranged - nearly every element, from the synth horns & whistle melodies, to the programmed funk-drummer-on-speed backbeat, to Paula herself’s “uh-uh-oh” is a hook. No easy feat, that.
posted by tantrumthecat at 4:10 PM on February 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

Making this anecdote about its origin all the more interesting.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:45 PM on February 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

I don't utterly loooooove "Straight Up," but it's hard to deny it's a near-perfect pop song. Just stupid degrees of catchy.

And, oh, the scandal of the video to "Cold-Hearted Snake!"
posted by praemunire at 5:51 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Surely, Gary Burghoff's magnum opus.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:32 PM on February 25, 2018

PAULA ABDUL - LAKER GIRL

Twenty minute story of Paula Abdul. She was too short to ever get a job in show business as a dancer. Her break was the Lakers cheerleading squad which she became the choreographer for in short order where the Jacksons noticed her work and hired her to do the choreography for Janet Jackson's music videos where she took over the music business.

In the interview she sounds like Mary Poppins; it's pretty amazing.
posted by bukvich at 7:00 PM on February 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've always had a lot of respect for Abdul because her choreography skills are astounding. Her song choice has always also been thrilling. In 3 albums (and accompanying videos) she entirely created a legacy that she still lives on today. I wish she were still choreographing. Imagine a Broadway show with her as lead choreographer. Your skin just reacted to that idea with a thrill.
posted by hippybear at 7:25 PM on February 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

When I first got a CD player, the holiday gift came with three CDs. This was number one on my list. Soon after, the Spellbound tour was the first concert I chose to attend. (I spent a hell of a long time paying off the ticket price loan.)

Of all the things I loved as a ten year old, this one holds up far better than most. I should really listen to it more than once every decade.
posted by eotvos at 9:07 PM on February 25, 2018

Don't leave us hanging - what were the other two CDs?
posted by Chrysostom at 9:16 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

worth noting that the Straight Up, Cold Hearted and Forever Your Girl videos were all directed by none other than David Fincher.
posted by roger ackroyd at 10:21 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

And the video for Forever Your Girl features a wee 7-year-old Elijah Wood!
posted by andraste at 10:47 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

I had this album on cassette.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:26 AM on February 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

All the world's a candy store
He's been trick or treatin'
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:27 AM on February 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

I was a jazz dancer in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I adored Paula Abdul's choreography and videos. Cold Hearted was my all time favorite. That incredible knee slide just before the 3-minute mark inspired a good chunk of my college dance touring ensemble group to get good knee pads and practice, practice, practice. These days I stick to belly dance, but I'll always love jazz dance too, even if I can't do much of it anymore. Thanks for this trip down memory lane!
posted by velvet winter at 1:00 AM on February 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

M.C. Skat Kat had a spinoff album, whose main claim to fame was having ended up topping AV Club's Least Essential Albums Of The 90s list (which also featured Rump's Hating Brenda, Billy Idol's Cyberpunk and a Jewish-joke-themed 2 Live Crew parody).
posted by acb at 3:15 AM on February 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

a Jewish-joke-themed 2 Live Crew parody

Who could possibly forget “Oy, It’s So Humid?” It’s like a sauna in here!

(I do not think my wife appreciates when I sing that to / at her in the summer.)
posted by uncleozzy at 3:25 AM on February 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

So...Elliot Wolff, credited as a co-writer on "Straight Up" and "Cold Hearted" was previously a touring keyboardist for Chaka Khan and co-producer/writer on a couple albums (Johnny Gill, Gladys Knight). If it was his demo and his bathroom, which is what I think Abdul says in that story video, he wasn't a total novice (even if he couldn't sing on key) and looking into some of the other stuff he produced later has him mining the same formula to diminishing effect.

He disappeared on a camping trip near Santa Fe in June 2016. His body was apparently recovered about two weeks later. His site hasn't been updated to reflect that...
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:04 AM on February 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: Way more saxophone than expected.
posted by Billiken at 7:24 AM on February 26, 2018

Don't leave us hanging - what were the other two CDs?

Heh. A B-52s best-hits compilation album, and Queen's Live Killers. Which, to be fair, are albums worth keeping.

But, lest anyone think I was a cooler kid than I actually was, I should point out that those were very quickly followed by the GhostBusters II soundtrack and a New Kids on the Block Christmas Album. After that, things really started to go downhill.
posted by eotvos at 9:43 AM on February 26, 2018

Can we talk about "Rush, Rush" and its video? It is sooooo corny, but oh my 13 year old self though it was the most beautiful and romantic thing ever. Keanu Reeves! Her white dress! The violin solo (classy!) in the middle! I didn't know it was a Rebel Without a Cause "homage" and didn't much care. I loved it. When they played it at middle school dances every girl wanted a boy to dance with because it was that song.
posted by lunasol at 3:09 PM on February 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

My Skipper doll danced to every song on this album, and I to most of them.

Fun fact about one from her follow-up effort, Spellbound — “Alright Tonight” was written by John Hiatt.
posted by armeowda at 4:33 PM on February 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I had the pleasure of seeing Paula Abdul in concert last summer (with Boyz II Men and NKOTB!) and she was amazing. Every song was solid, and she still has the moves. Actually, all three acts were great.
posted by candyland at 12:21 PM on February 27, 2018