OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN
PHYSICAL
GREEN HILL
★★★
Anyone who needs reminding of the relentless passing of time – only a small, masochistic portion of Classic Pop’s readers, one imagines – would do well to revisit Physical, Olivia Newton-
John’s 11th album. It’s reissued as a 2CD/1DVD set, with the DVD containing not only Grammywinning videos for each song but also another Grammy-earning live TV special filmed 12 months later in Utah. It’s over 40 years now since the title track topped the US charts for 10 weeks, provoking sweaty dreams from priapic teenagers globally, but what’s notable is just how remarkably tame it seems today. Compared to its saucy, body-building-fixated promo video, the song’s production feels somewhat bloodless and, though it was considered so racy it was banned, or at least edited, by several radio stations – not least Utah’s (though it made it into that concert) – its raunchiest line is merely “There’s nothing left to talk about/ Unless it’s horizontally”. Cardi B’s WAP it most certainly is not.