Forever Your Girl - Abdul, Paula (Cassette 1992)

(Disclaimer: Those looking for a brief description of the album will find what their looking for in the "Album Overview" section. The section titled "Detailed Track Discussion" is meant only for those who want to read detailed descriptions of the songs, and they do not constitute the essence of this review. Lastly and most importantly, this review is not necessarily written by the point of view of a Paula Abdul fan.)

Introduction:

It's funny that I forgot that Paula Abdul has a mole on her left cheek. You don't seem to see it much anymore. It's probably pretty hard to put on make-up everywhere except for where that mole is.

Track Reviews:

Best song: "Straight Up"

The Way That You Love Me B-
Knocked Out C-
Opposites Attract C+
State of Attraction D+
I Need You F
Forever Your Girl B-
Straight Up B
Next to You C+
Cold Hearted D
One or the Other D-

Overall rating: 2/5

Album Overview

I can use the fact that I remember Paula Abdul during her original fame to sound really old to the kids today. I'm only 24, but that means I was seven or eight in 1989 and she did have a highly prominent music video in 1989 featuring a cartoon character. (Although we didn't get cable until 1990, so it was probably when I was 10 or so. That makes sense.)

Abdul was slated to be a flash-in-the-pan popster who went out of style once the mid-'90s rolled around. As fate would have it, she would be asked to judge American Idol in 2002. That wasn't a huge event by itself--but that show turned out to much bigger than anyone anticipated. And suddenly everybody remembers who she is! Only time will tell if Abdul will be more famous for her pop career or her television career. Considering the American Idol winners are proving to nothing but flash-in-the-pans themselves, it's a toss-up right now. Anyway, rejected American Idol contestants can use the fact that Abdul doesn't have such a great singing voice against her. Maybe that's why she's so nice to everybody. She doesn't sing great songs either, but we all know that's one of the American Idol franchise's last concerns!

At the same time, the focus of these songs doesn't appear to be Adbul's voice. Everything is so drowned out with those typical late-80s song production that she doesn't find much room to belt out much even if she wanted to. She's also half-rapping through much of this. No, her talent doesn't lie in the singing. She doesn't write these songs, so she can't claim to be a singer-songwriter. Her talent definitely lies with her choreography and dancing abilities. She worked as a choreographer prior to this pop success and she brought those abilities to MTV! Her productions were pretty dazzling. She knows what to shake and how to shake it!!! (Bwah!!) This dancing can be described as funky "street dancing" that has the charming tendency to break out in tap dancing. Well certainly that's worth something!

Unfortunately, listening to the CD is very much a non-visual task. The only proper way to enjoy this is to not listen to it, but dance to it. Who's going to do that? I don't dance! Anyway, I'm sitting here and listening to it ................. Some of it is OK, but it's all forgettable. You'll remember her mole longer than you remember any of these songs. I hate to say that this even includes "Straight Up."

Track Reviews

The late '80s pop production is probably enough to drive anyone crazy!!! Yikes!!! "The Way That You Love Me" has a few good hooks but the producers spent too much of it showcasing the percussion and dated sythnesizers. You could argue that it's dance music and they're just giving the public what they wanted in 1988/1989, but that just means nobody's going to want to buy that album in 1999. What song did we dance to in 1999? Funny, I can't remember.

You'll have to slow down your dance with "Knocked Out." It's more of a cooly paced song. Nothing can sound as late 80s/early 90s as those orchestral hits! It seems to want to break into a few hooky passages, but those freakishly loud drums keep on beating it down. Help, help the hook is being repressed!!!

"Opposites Attract" is the cartoon-video song. Watching that video now, I probably had no idea how racy it was back then. The cartoon/live-action morph was kind of like Roger Rabbit. That's all I cared about! This one's alright as far as dance-pop goes. It's still missing infectious hooks, which is why nobody remembers the song! At least I like its funky groove. It grows horribly stale by the end. That's why we needed to watch her dances.

"State of Attraction" is fun for the first minute, but it just grows boring by the end. Some of the percussion was well arranged, but that's easy to do. Those stops were really awful and disrupted the flow of the song. Wouldn't those bug you if you were trying to dance to this? I don't dance to music, so I guess I wouldn't know.

"I Need You" grows boring after the first 10 seconds, which I guess means it's one of the album's bad songs. (Really, they're all bad, but I'm humoring her because she's a really odd person sometimes, and I don't want her stalking me.) The groove is as bland as the melody this time, which is not a good sign.

"Forever Your Girl" is one of the hookiest songs of the album. It's not saying much, but it takes until the two-minute mark before it grows tiresome. Naturally, the Madonna-follower instrumental techniques are here in full gear. This was probably big on the radio. I didn't really listen to the radio back then.

It's easy to see that "Straight Up" had the most hit potential. This album has an interesting history that it took 62 weeks to reach the #1 spot on the pop charts. The reason for that is because they waited a year to release this single. ("Knocked Out" and "It's Just the Way You Love Me" were released previously and they didn't perform too well.) The hook is solid but like all the songs on the album, it runs out of steam by the end. They don't do enough to make the songs' development exciting ... just relying on the same old groove from start to finish.

Hey, who's to say this album can't have an occasional ballad or two? "Next to You" isn't as bad as you might think. True, being a ballad, it would end up completely proving that Abdul has a weak voice. But they still add on excessive layers of instrumentals to cover much of that up! The melody has a few nice hooks in it. The over-production is fine. It doesn't delve into vomit-inducing nonsense that a lot of music in this genre succumb to. The over-repetition of the hooks don't do it any favors, however.

A few neat bits of synth-pop in "Cold Hearted," but it doesn't have very many hooks. The weak ones keep it from becoming truly dismal. I keep pounding these artists on their hooks, because that's all this genre is really good for. No hooks in the melody, no hooks in the groove ... All you're left with is a danceable beat and a lot of shiny song production. None of this is of "artistic integrity," as it were.

Oh thank goodness, it's the last song! "One or the Other" is a pseudo-funk song. A few nice bits in the song production, but there's nothing that excites me. My poor hook-starved hears are looking for something to grasp on, but this song leaves me completely dry. That's a shame, because the song is developed fairly well, and it seems like the writers *thought* the song was catchy. This isn't even good for at-the-moment pleasure! Boring!!!!

Concussion

Former pop star or current American Idol judge? ... Hm. Well, she wouldn't have been an American Idol judge if it weren't for this album!