Songoftheday 11/7/16 - It ain't the money or the diamond rings, honey I ain't impressed with your material things...

"(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me" - Paula Abdul
from the album Forever Your Girl (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #88 (in 1988); #3 (in 1989) (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's song of the day comes from dance-pop singer Paula Abdul, whose Forever Your Girl album had landed her a trio of #1 pop hits with "Straight Up", "Forever Your Girl", and "Cold Hearted". For the next release she went back to a track originally released as the second single from the album after lead single "Knocked Out" stalled right under the pop top-40 at #41. "(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me" (titled to differentiate that with the Karyn White hit), written and produced by Oliver Lieber, got a meager reception; though it reached #10 on Billboard's R&B chart, and went to #18 on their Dance Club Play list, the song stopped cold down at #88 on their pop Hot 100. However, with the huge success of the three next singles, and the smart decision to re-release the song as it was mixed on the album, forgoing the incessant handclaps for emphasis on the funky bassline and synth tags, gave it a much better chance on pop radio, which thankfully caught on...

The second time around for "The Way That You Love Me" brought it to the top 3 on the American pop chart in December of 1989. Internationally, the song went to #2 in Canada, and #12 in New Zealand. However, even the re-release stalled down at #74 in the UK, and #76 in Australia.

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Here's the original dance-pop single remix from 1988, which sported a differently edited video from David Fincher, and had the handclaps, but also a pretty cool tap-dance break...

...and finally, Paula from the American Music Awards in 1990, where lipsynching or not the choreography of this is simply flawless...

Up tomorrow: Colourful metalheads get posh.