Newton-John tries titilation in Kiss
If there really is no room for erotica on the airwaves, Olivia Newton-John may be in big trouble. The best track from her new album, Soul Kiss (MCA), is the title cut, and it ranks alongside Sheena Easton’s Sugar Walls for high-tech titillation.
Only Newton-John’s typically nice-girl reading keeps you from immediately realizing just how suggestive the song is, but fans won over by the 1981 hit Physical will be relieved to know that Newton-John appears to be shedding her squeaky-clean image for good. The cover of Soul Kiss was even shot by the kinky Helmut Newton.
Newton-John’s new emphasis on the sensual side of life takes her from the rock-ish Culture Shock, on which she attempts to talk her lover into a menage a trois, to the less eventful Overnight Observation.
Even when her material is not wholly up to par, Newton-John has an impressive array of session men to fall back on: Larry Carlton, Tom Scott, Greg Phillinganes, Nathan East, Paulinho Da Costa and Lee Ritenour.
Sounding like the Livvy of old, she gives a bit of fluff called Emotional Tangle a sweet, guileless treatment. Other songs, particularly You Were Great, How Was I (a boring duet with Carl Wilson with backup vocals by Christopher Cross), are all artful tease and no delivery. Newton-John is on the right track, but she needs more than a snazzy new image and interesting sidemen; she needs a few more interesting songs.
By Connie Johnson, Los Angeles Times