Songoftheday 1/2/17 - I take things serious and you take 'em light, I go to bed early and I party all night...

"Opposites Attract" - Paula Abdul with the Wild Pair
from the album Forever Your Girl (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

This first Song of the Day for 2017 comes from dance-pop singer and choreographer Paula Abdul, whose debut album Forever Your Girl had already spun off three #1 hits with "Straight Up", "Cold Hearted", and the title track, as well as the re-released "second" single that climbed to #3, "(It's Just) The Way That You Love Me". The sixth single from the record (the first, "Knocked Up", missed the top-40 at #41), "Opposites Attract", was billed as a "collaboration" between Paula and the Wild Pair, two backup singers (Bruce DeShazer and Marvin Gunn) that went call and response with her during the verses. Written and produced by Oliver Lieber, the "MC Skat Kat" was the Disney-style animated cat that appeared with Abdul in the video, which harkened back to the musical films of the 40s and 50s...

"Opposites Attract" became the fourth #1 pop hit from Forever Your Girl in February of 1990. The song also climbed to #3 on Billboard's R&B chart, and it slipped on to their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening" chart at #45. The 12" remix single went to #24 on the Dance Club Play list as well. Internationally, the record topped the singles charts in Australia and Canada, peaked at #2 in the UK, and made the top ten in the Netherlands (#4), New Zealand (#6), Norway (#6), and Ireland (#8). Paula would win a Grammy Award for the best short-form music video. That clip (and the song) were so popular it actually scored a recording spot for "MC Skat Kat and the Stray Mob", the animated felines from the clip, who actually ended up with a pop hit with "Skat Strut" (#96) in 1991.

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Here's Paula live in concert in Japan....

Although the song wasn't a huge hit on the dance chart, it was played quite a bit out East, including the Shep Pettibone Special Mix that appeared on her Shut Up And Dance remix album...

As well as Keith Cohen's slammin' house mix...

In 2015, when Paula appeared on the Late Late Show with James Corden, the pair did a way fun lipdub to the song...

Finally, here's the "rough cut" of the video, which like most Disney dance animation had a "body double", in this case Boogaloo Shrimp who starred in the classic breakdance film Breakin', providing the moves the animators would draw over...

Up tomorrow: Youthful rapper goes to school.