Though the video starts with a few shots of well-oiled muscle men deep into their workout routine, it’s basically a fake-out, giving way to a more comedic conceit. With a rollicking guitar solo and giddy synth accentuations, “Physical” was an immediate hit and has endured as her signature song. Of course, its lyrics feel a little PG these days (“There’s nothing left to talk about unless it’s horizontally”), but the cheeky suggestiveness was a major change for Newton-John. Originally intended for Rod Stewart and, at one point, offered to Tina Turner, the track represented a very intentional shift for the Aussie singer, allowing her to step into her power and own her sexuality. Related: Olivia Newton-John Is Still The One We Wantīut, in her first solo release post- Xanadu, Newton-John surprised her fans and shook up the charts with “Physical,” the pop-forward lead single from her 1981 album of the same name. Take, for example, her first song to top the Billboard charts in the U.S., “I Honestly Love You” (from her fourth studio album), which was a breathy ballad all about professing a pure and innocent love.
Much like Sandy at the beginning of Grease, Newton-John’s public image was pretty squeaky clean through most of the ’70s, and her music followed suit. In any case, “Physical” remains one of the great songs of the early 80s, and gave us a new Olivia Newton-John, but still a world-class star.But for our purposes today, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on her award-winning music career, and particularly the song and video that changed its trajectory forever: “Physical.” There were also remote areas of the United States where local radio stations refused to broadcast the song because of the lyrics, which, however, were very explicit. The song was a hit first in the United States, probably thanks to the spell that Olivia Newton-John’s name still exercised, and then also in Europe and many other countries, such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada. But luckily there’s still one for Olivia he isn’t quite as toned and muscular as the others and is still a bit overweight, but in the end he’s what Olivia was looking for. There’s a little detail, which might be less ironic today than it sounded in 1981: those muscular guys come out in pairs holding hands with each other.
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After all, we were in the full era of aerobic gym! And so we all remember the video set in a gym where Olivia tries in every way to get a group of mid aged fat men back in shape, without results.īut when Olivia goes out to the locker, without her the gentlemen get busy, and when she comes back she no longer recognizes them: they are slimmed down, much more muscular, and they look even younger. If the title of the song was quite explicit about the type of physicality, the video totally changed its scope and referred it to the tone of the human body. The video for “Physical” was instrumental in the song’s success. Yes, because as we know MTV had just started its broadcasts, on August 1 of that same year, and so if you had a good video there were very good chances that they would broadcast again and again, because they really hadn’t many good videos!! It must be said that Lukather had the same feeling also for other famous songs by Toto, which instead became planetary hits, such as “Africa” and “ Rosanna“, songs on which at first he would not bet a penny.Īnd so “Physical” (the original title was supposed to be “Let’s get physical”) was released on September 28, 1981, two days after Olivia’s 33rd birthday, and it was one of the best moments to release a song if it had a good video. Actually, she wasn’t the only one with this opinion! Even Steve Lukather, Toto’s guitarist who performed the song’s guitar solos, was quite direct in saying that he did not believe in this song, that it had no chance of success. Olivia initially declined because the song seemed a little too cheeky and explicit, but luckily she changed her mind. They were thinking of Rod Stewart, but one of Olivia’s managers heard the song (Kipner himself was a great friend of Olivia’s) and decided to propose it to her. In 1981, the authors Terry Shaddick and Steve Kipner wrote a rather explicit song, thinking of a male performer who was relevant to the female audience. Three years after the worldwide success of Grease, which was released in the summer of 1978, Sandy, who by the end of the film had already transformed with leather clothes and seductive attitudes, is now definitely Olivia, a singer and complete star ready to conquer the world again. Olivia Newton-John was one of the absolute stars of the early 80s.
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