Pre-Release
- NOV 22, 2024
- 10 Songs
- Grease (The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture) · 1978
- Grease (The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture) · 1978
- Grease (The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture) · 1978
- Good Luck Chuck (Motion Picture Soundtrack) · 1981
- Xanadu (From the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) · 1980
- Grease (The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture) · 1978
- Xanadu (From the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) · 1980
- Have You Never Been Mellow · 1975
- Have You Never Been Mellow · 1975
- Physical (Deluxe Edition) [2021 Remaster] · 1981
Essential Albums
- Olivia Newton-John’s musical career took a major turn in 1981. Physical saw the Aussie movie star and singer embrace both a new image and a more pop-oriented sound compared to the previous year’s Xanadu soundtrack—and the world took notice. Haloed in a bright white sweatband on the album cover, Newton-John fully eschews her earlier focus on country music, instead showcasing the playful versatility of her voice over synth-laced dance pop and soft rock. That risk paid off handsomely, with the title track topping the US chart for 10 straight weeks. Complete with a winking music video, “Physical” starts slow and somewhat coy before launching into a concise earworm chorus that celebrates the joy found in touching (“Let me hear your body talk”). A lighthearted song that also celebrates personal agency for women in the realm of courtship, that worldwide hit added new layers to the star’s clean-cut image. Newton-John’s newfound sexual frankness is also apparent in the power ballad “Stranger’s Touch” and the soulful “Love Make Me Strong.” Other themes emerge as well, with album closer “The Promise (The Dolphin Song)” introducing the passion for environmentalism that would come to define the singer’s philanthropic work alongside her extensive activism around breast cancer. She chose her collaborators well here, with producer and repeat co-writer John Farrar playing the bulk of the guitar and bass—though Toto’s Steve Lukather plays the sultry guitar solo on “Physical.” Film composer Michael Boddicker is responsible for many of the assorted synthesizers, and the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb co-penned the romantic standout “Carried Away.” Neatly echoing Newton-John’s transformation from good girl to edgier woman over the course of 1978’s film adaptation of Grease, the more mature Physical remains the pinnacle of her solo output. It also helped to confirm the budding 1980s as a decade ruled by bouncy yet assertive synth-pop, as well as forecasting later Aussie exports such as Kylie Minogue.
Artist Playlists
- Grease isn't the only word for this Aussie's icon's long, prolific career.
Compilations
Appears On
More To Hear
- How the record went to No. 1 for 10 weeks, and then ran the ’80s.
- Celebrating the long, prolific career of the Aussie icon.
- Olivia Newton-John talks 40 years of 'Physical' and more.
- Barry Gibb on 'Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers’ Songbook Vol. 1.'
- The guitarist guests, playing the Ramones and Portishead.
About Olivia Newton-John
Perhaps the only singer to anticipate both Madonna’s early bump-and-grind anthems and Taylor Swift’s winsome country ballads, Olivia Newton-John had a hitmaking path filled with unexpected reinventions. Born in Cambridge, England, in 1948, Newton-John spent most of her childhood in Australia, and already had designs on stardom as a teen in the ’60s, performing in song contests and on variety shows. But the gentle, plaintive voice she was honing was a manifestation of a deeper vision for pop music. Her early forays into country—embodied by 1973’s “Let Me Be There” and the following year's “If You Love Me (Let Me Know)”—rankled Nashville purists, not only because of their smoothed-out take on the genre, but also because they were sung by someone from far outside country’s heavily guarded gates. That she won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance in 1974 only cemented her arrival. Those tunes were a mere staging ground for 1974’s soft-focus pop smash “I Honestly Love You,” which put Newton-John on a starward trajectory. But just as soon as that success came, she ditched her decidedly mellow image for another star-making turn as the demure-girl-turned-dynamo Sandy Olsson in the 1978 film adaptation of Grease, finger-snapping her way alongside John Travolta through hard-to-resist sing-alongs built on rock ’n’ roll nostalgia. More dizzying change-ups followed, and each explored new facets of Newton-John's range and artistic inclinations. In 1980, she starred in the fantasy film Xanadu and, collaborating with orchestral rockers ELO, experimented with disco for its soundtrack before crossing over into R&B and electronic pop with 1981’s “Physical.” In the ensuing years, her music took on a particularly personal tone as she wrote and sang candidly of loss and her own decades-long fight against breast cancer (she also founded the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre in Melbourne in 2008). In doing so, she shifted once again—as so many great artists do—from a pop icon to an advocate and a beacon of hope for survivors. Newton-John passed away in 2022 at the age of 73.
- HOMETOWN
- Cambridge, England
- BORN
- September 26, 1948
- GENRE
- Pop