#Olivia newton john physical full
#Olivia newton john physical tv

Clad in a black leather jacket and skin-tight satin pants, a cigarette dangling from her crimson red lips, Newton-John set the screen ablaze during the film’s closing fairground scene. Listeners who’d only heard the song on the radio got an eyeful as they watched the singer’s onscreen transformation from virginal to vampy. The track’s rubbery bass line propelled the tune to number one just a week before the film’s opening on 16 June. Newton-John and Travolta’s chemistry practically melted vinyl as “You’re the One That I Want” debuted on the Hot 100 the week ending 1 April 1978. If the former tailored Newton-John’s established style to widescreen melodrama, then the latter introduced a sizzling new musical direction for the singer. Filmed during the summer of 1977, just before Saturday Night Fever (1977) catapulted co-star John Travolta to superstardom, Grease featured two original compositions that Farrar penned and produced specifically for the film, “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and “You’re the One That I Want”. She won Billboard‘s “Top Pop Singles Female Vocalist” in 1974, the same year her albums Let Me Be There (1973) and If You Love Me Let Me Know (1974) placed number two and number five, respectively, on Billboard’s year-end “Top Country Albums” chart.Īfter winning the Country Music Association’s “Female Vocalist of the Year” (1974), and conquering more conservative notions about the genre’s domain, Newton-John exceeded expectations of her own in Grease. At the time, Newton-John straddled a wholesome pop-country sensibility, sharing the AM airwaves with contemporaries like Helen Reddy, Anne Murray, and Karen Carpenter. Over an 18-month period between 1974-1975, she scored five consecutive gold-selling singles, including two number one hits, “Have You Never Been Mellow” and “I Honestly Love You”, which claimed the Grammy for “Record of the Year” in March 1975.

#Olivia newton john physical full

In this exclusive tribute, Farrar, Holman, and Grant, plus songwriters Steve Kipner, Tom Snow, Terry Britten, and Albhy Galuten recall how lightning struck Physical and sparked a pop sensation.Ī full decade before donning her leotard and sweatband for “Physical”, Newton-John scored her first Top 40 hit with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “If Not for You” (1971).

“We all were looking for that moment to strike.” As Newton-John celebrates the recent release of her memoir Don’t Stop Believin’ (Penguin Books Australia), with one dollar from every purchase benefitting the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre, PopMatters shows how the creative team behind Physical shepherded her career-defining album from the studio to the screen. Holman, who began mixing and engineering Farrar’s productions for Newton-John during Grease. “We were always looking for lightning in a bottle,” says David J. With “Make a Move on Me” following at number five, Billboard named Newton-John “Top Pop Singles Artist” of 1982 and deemed John Farrar the year’s “Top Pop Singles Producer” ahead of legendary Beatles producer George Martin. However, “Physical” not only became the most successful hit of Newton-John’s career but the biggest hit of the entire decade, spending ten weeks at number one. Like You’ve Never Seen Her Before.” The music and videos that accompanied Physical boldly revamped the singer’s image and caught even her most ardent fans by surprise, especially the title track’s risqué storyline.

#Olivia newton john physical tv

Director Brian Grant would animate those qualities in Olivia Physical (1982), a full-length video album that won the Recording Academy’s second-ever Grammy Award issued for “Video of the Year” and spawned an Emmy-nominated TV special, Let’s Get Physical (1982).ĪBC-TV promoted Let’s Get Physical with the tagline “Olivia Newton-John.

While Newton-John had always brought a certain élan to Farrar’s songs, Physical summoned both the sensual and sinewy sides to her voice. “I noticed when I worked on Physical that Olivia had certain different voices that she could use,” says Farrar. Please” (1975) seem like a quaint memory. The album’s sharper, rock-infused material made the pleasant country twang of “Please Mr. The ten-song set furnished a canvas for the producer’s most progressive ideas yet, the culmination of a musical makeover that had begun only three years earlier with Newton-John’s role in Grease (1978) and continued onscreen in Xanadu (1980). Released in October 1981, Physical would signify the commercial peak of Newton-John’s partnership with Farrar. As a tanned and toned Newton-John splashed in the sea, Physical soaked record buyers in waves of pleasure. Different moods ebbed and flowed across the album, reflecting the singer’s supple vocal style and the brilliance of producer John Farrar. “Olivia Newton-John’s best album to date.” That’s how Rolling Stone described Physical (1981).