It’s kind of amazing Paula Abdul only released three albums, because she was an unstoppable juggernaut for a three-year stretch from 1988 through 1991.
“Straight Up” was the third single released off Paula Abdul’s debut album, “Forever Your Girl”. Clearly her record label didn’t know what people wanted from Paula, because the first single (“Knocked Out”) fizzled and the second (“The Way That You Love Me”) was more successful but not Earth shattering.
It was looking like “Forever Your Girl”, and Paula Abdul, were both going to be one-and-done music industry flops.
Then came “Straight Up”, and suddenly, everything Paula Abdul touched was magic. She’d have five consecutive number one singles; after this came “Forever Your Girl”, “Cold Hearted”, “Opposites Attract”, “Rush Rush”, and “The Promise of a New Day”.
Unfortunately, Paula Abdul had demons, which affected her career trajectory, so that was the end of the run.
The story, fortunately, found its happy ending when Paula resurfaced on “American Idol” and reinvented her career as a reality show judge (which turned out to be just about as lucrative and smart of a career path as one could take in the 2000s); she’s still doing that today on one of the FOX “Ken Jeong can’t believe it’s Janeane Garofalo dressed up as a flamingo in a sombrero” shows.
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