Physical
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN: Physical. Olivia Newton-John (vocals); orchestra. Landslide: Stranger’s Touch: Make a Move on Me: Falling: Physical; Silvery Rain; and four others. MCA MCA-5229 $8.98. MCAC-5229 $8.98, $8.98. MCAT-5229
Performance: Clever
Recording: Excellent
At a time when the newly impoverished pop music industry is wandering around in dazed confusion wondering what happened, when many of her contemporaries are thinking of new careers in auto repair or stenography, Olivia Newton-John, the thinking man’s ingenue, sails serenely along creating commercial hits.
This album and the title song from it have both been smashes. It really shouldn’t come as any surprise, because ever since her arrival on the pop scene more than a decade ago Newton-John has cannily and cleverly ridden the crest of each pop wave as it has rolled in. (Her only near misstep was the film Xanadu, which didn’t quite make it.)
For the early Eighties, Newton-John is combining the current national passion for physical fitness by featuring a series of eye-popping album-cover photographs of herself in the midst of various strenuous exercises and by singing a collection of semi-disco, semi-pop hard-breathers on the record itself.
She’s at her commercial best in the title song, in which she comes pretty close to some freestyle, sexy grunting and groaning. In the rest of the material she reverts to her more or less demure, cheery self.
No question that she’s a clever, accomplished performer, or that she’ll go on turning out hits for as long as she wants to. We’ve learned over the years that what Olivia wants, Olivia gets.
P.R.