Songoftheday 11/6/19 - I made mistakes when I played with your mind, gave you excuses with each story line...
from the album Head Over Heels (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 6
Today's song of the day comes from Paula Abdul, whose second album Spellbound had spun off five top-20 pop hits in America with "Will You Marry Me?", "Vibeology", "Blowing Kisses In The Wind", along with two #1 singles in "Promise Of A New Day" and "Rush Rush". Her third release wouldn't arrive until four years after the last, as Paula worked on her personal issues and addictions. The result was Head Over Heels, led by the ambitious Middle Eastern-flavored single "My Love Is For Real". With Yemeni-Israeli singer Ofra Haza singing backup, the mid-tempo slinker was penned by Paula with producer Rhett Lawrence, and headed in an interesting direction that didn't belie her dance music roots...
"My Love Is For Real" brought Paula back to the American Top-40 in July of 1995, but it didn't have the success I'm sure she planned it to be. The song peaked at #40 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format, while it spent three weeks on their R&B chart, peaking at a measly #96. Where the song did succeed at was in the clubs, where Paula scored her first and only #1 Dance Club Play hit with the remixes of the track. Internationally, the single went to #1 in Hungary, and peaked at #7 in Australia. It also made the top-40 in Canada (#20), New Zealand (#20), and the UK (#28).
The second release from Head Over Heels was the bubbly "Crazy Cool", which did climb to #13 on the American dance chart, while stalling on the pop Hot 100 at #58 (it did a little better in Canada at #49). A third try, "Ain't Never Gonna Give You Up" with Color Me Badd as guests, only managed to "bubble under" the pop Hot 100 at #112 in the U.S.
Abdul's label wouldn't give her another chance at a "comeback" - she co-wrote a song for an aborted album, "Spinning Around", that would eventually give Kylie Minogue her own reboot. Shelved by Virgin Records, who simply issued a greatest hits set to lock in her career, Abdul waited until 2001 where she would reinvent herself as one of the three judges on the musical competition show American Idol with Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson. Her stint on that show was legendary and gave her a new audience, which in 2008 she attempted to take advantage of with the single "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow" with Jackson, which peaked at #62 on the pop Hot 100 but rose all the way to #2 on the Dance Club Play list. A year later, Abdul tried with another one-off single, "I'm Just Here For The Music" (written by Danielle Brisebois),which is her most recent Hot 100 hit at #87. Since then, Paula has been on TV off and on, and even had a successful "oldies" tour recently.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the Junior Vasquez mix edit that helped the song top the dance chart...
and Paula appearing on Top of the Pops...
Up tomorrow: a besheveled reggae artist is larger than life.
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