I'm fascinated to know why they didn't use them. (Well, they did use some Greg Gorman shots - the one of her in leather trousers on the back of the European VHS was, I think, from this shoot, as were some on the Japanese Soul Kiss items). I mean, these could have worked as the album cover art for an album called Soul Kiss.
Totally agree. They nominated Ennio Morricone's score for The Thing as Worst Original Score and awarded George Michael's I Want Your Sex as Worst Original Song for Beverly Hills Cop II. Ridiculous.
Those pictures are better than any of the ones that made the SK cover! I’m not sure Queen Of The Publication would have made a good focal point for the album… It’s an interesting, if odd title. The song itself is far too shrill and in-your-face to make a good single, IMO. Also, I’ve never been a fan of that squawk-singing thing she was doing around the time. The middle eight of QOTP is awful. Ultimately, I think Soul Kiss was a better lead single. Sadly, like many of the songs on the eventual album, QOTP is a video-first-song-second track.
If Soul Kiss was much better quality and promoted properly, it would hit differently. Unfortunately, it happened at the wrong time.
They clearly had trouble finding strong songs for Soul Kiss. You would think after the huge success of Physical, songwriters would have fallen out of the wood work with good tunes for them. They got too focused on furthering her sexy image and songs that would fit brand.
Reminds me of her early 1990s photoshoots. I guess they felt the need to "push the envelope" at the time...
Do you all remember Olivia’s ex-boyfriend, Patrick McDermott? He has been missing for more than a decade, with the most popular theory being that he faked his own death. Recently, a podcast series suggested he was indeed dead. Casefile Presents: Pseudocide
How did she ever get involve with him? It got to be whenever she did an interview they always managed to ask Where is Patrick, any news? Very weird part of her personal life.
I don’t get those people on that Facebook group. It’s not very kind to tell fans to eat marbles because they have photos no one else has. So tough luck. That not the Olivia fans I know. It’s a good thing I don’t post there because I would reply, not cool. sorry my rant for the day lol
Patrick was the mysterious part of Olivia’s life. I remember that she said in one article that she met him in Los Angeles while she was shooting a commercial. The reason why he wants to be vanished, some say, is because he's in debt, but we’ll never know.
Oh that pictures post! I was so confused of that caption when it caught my eyes in the morning. People get weird sometimes
Yes, that approach plagued the whole project, didn’t it? And then, bless her, she made no videos for half the video-first songs, and pretty sub-standard ones for the other half!
Only video i liked at all was (fun) Toughen Up.. The rest were so low-key and kinda pointless. I know she was expecting Chloe at the time and she wanted to be careful. They could've just shot a more flattering series of images, poses, locations, and intercut here with storyline video content. Guess there was a minimal budget assigned to the video aspect of the album. And OMG, that weird lighting behind her, when her hair is up in a poof, is very unflattering, like she's some alien entity!
They made an effort with the Toughen Up and Soul Kiss videos, but the rest were the equivalent of the nightclub ones in the Physical album clips!
It’s a little numbing to know that at one point they were going to lay all their cards on “Queen of the Publication,” an okay song at best. Plus that title is awful, especially for an album following “Totally Hot” and “Physical.” I can understand why they changed their direction and if nothing else, “Soul Kiss” is a better title. It still didn’t matter in the end. Sometimes having a monster hit like “Physical” is more of a curse than blessing. You get typed cast by it plus you got the challenge of competing with yourself against the unreachable success of your own song. Debbie Boone and Melanie are two artists that come to mind.
Just read about how bad the film "Can’t Stop The Music" was. Now I know that there was an attempt to cast Olivia as Samantha. I'm glad that she chose Xanadu over this. If that happened, it would destroyed her acting career sooner.
Same happened to Kim Carnes after “Bette Davis Eyes.” She released some very solid singles & albums afterwards, but they all pretty much fell flat.
Kim Carnes; very curious career trajectory. I’m assuming her voice was simply not everyone’s cup of tea, so it came down to her needing to do some very good songs, wher ONJ was an artists you could enjoy an average song just because her voice was so pleasant to listen to. More Love is one of my favorite singles of all time, and of course Bette Davis Eyes as a monster hit for Carnes. But she had some pretty odd songs, like Draw Of The Cards, which was a single but not, imo, single material at all. But her albums were really good imo. Voyeur and Cafe Racers are outstanding albums with their own sound. Produced by Val Garay, who was excellent. Audiophile sounding albums. But then she came out with Barking At Airplanes, which is when I owned my record store, and it fell flat and that was the end of her commercial career. ONJ had a much more pleasing and commercial voice, and she was good at navigating changes to music into the 80’s. So hey, I impulsively picked up a copy of ONJ Greatest Hits II. Was one of those record buying trips where there was just not a lot to buy that day, and it was reasonably priced, so I figured “why not?” And it’s next to impossible to get a good MCA pressing, which probably doesn’t surprise anyone. I thought the first compilation from this company was just awful. I’m happy to report this one is, imo, much better. I compared it to my original. Both sound like a typical compilation, like low gen tapes were not used, and that’s pretty much how it is with comps. I will say this version is a bit clearer and better mastered than the original. I suspect it’s because they used digital files, but it’s interesting to note that the hype sticker indicated that it was sourced from the master tapes. Interesting that the labels are really “getting it” that people buying vinyl want to know. But we also know that doesn’t necessarily mean it was using THE master tapes, and it clearly thi was not mastered using them. Still, the pressing was decent and it sounds “fine.” The ELO tracks aren’t great, but I think I’ve only heard one good sounding copy of Magic and it escapes me if it was my Xanadu album or somewhere else. Hope this helps if anyone is on the fence. I would recommend this over a US MCA, unless you could score a US promo copy.
I have both the US MCA 5347 LP and the Japan EMS 91045 LP. The US LP has no inner sleeve, the Japan LP came with an inner sleeve with lyrics in English and Japanese. What a missed opportunity for the US to not include an inner sleeve with additional photos and lyrics. Was this an outtake photo from the GH Vol 2 sessions? or was this photo used on some official release? I like it.
I found these photos on Worthpoint from a prior ebay sale, says they were taken from a slide. I know these are not new but it’s interesting that they had alternate shots they could have used for the inner spread photo. I really like the one of her smiling almost in the same pose as the original inner one, it’s shown on the 9 collage here, far right middle section. She was so photogenic, she must have been a dream for photographers. There were 9 photos from this sale and only 3 they provided close ups.
I’ve never seen this photo before....where was the opening beach scene filmed? Was it on Malibu by her home? I wish the complete tv special could be found in such excellent picture quality as these photos and could be released as an official DVD. I know I’m probably the only one that wants it but I wish so much that it could be released if it still exists in the ABC tv archives. “I’d like to thank you for sharing this hour with me and I hope that you find the person on the other side of your net, goodnight”
Before "Can’t Stop The Music" came out, I was at a screening of “The Empire Strikes Back” and the audience booed throughout the trailer. I’ve never seen that happen before or since. I was shocked. When it opened, it got yanked after just three days of play at the same theater.
