Odd detour, Part Two

In my other Paula Abdul review, I explained the odd hold the pathetic dance-pop singer's two albums had over me a decade or so ago. It was basically the first "secular" music I was allowed to buy in my sheltered private-school days, so I listened to it all the time. Even now, in the year 2000, listening to these albums at the age of 22, I know every one of these bastards by heart.

Spellbound is the more sophisticated follow-up to Forever Your Girl. On her first album, Abdul was pictured as some sort of clean-cut girl next door. Here, she's got inch-long fake eyelashes and some kind of old-movie vamp look about her. What's more, there's actually guitar on some of these songs! You can just picture someone at Virgin Records telling the other suits at a board meeting that they had to "update Paula Abdul for the rockin' '90s."

There were a couple big hits off this album. "Rush Rush" can best be remembered as the sappy ballad that brought Keanu "Whoa" Reeves into the music video world. It's not particularly good, but it is insanely catchy. "Promise of a New Day" is Paula's preachy environmental song and an okay dance track. And I still like the string-heavy ballad "Blowing Kisses in the Wind."

And, sad to say, the album tracks are what I enjoy most off Spellbound. "My Foolish Heart" is harder-edged than anything off Forever Your Girl and actually has some musical credibility to it, "To You" has a great piano/string interlude, and the title track has some nice-sounding keyboard effects of the trance-spooky variety.

Spellbound also contains a prime example of Prince's weakness for the female gender. He was so horny at one point that he'd produce any girl singer whose pants he thought he could get into. His "U" has better drum programming than the rest of Spellbound, and the "watch me dance" interlude is kind of creative, but overall it's about as good as his work on the Carmen Electra album.

Whatever you do, though, cut Spellbound off before its painful last two songs. "Alright Tonight" comes courtesy of producer Don Was (do the words "Walk the Dinosaur" ring a bell?) and features painful, Paul Simon-ultralite Graceland grooves. And the only word to describe the tacky "Will You Marry Me?" even with its harmonica solo from Stevie Wonder, is "ugh."

It's not a masterpiece, by any stretch, and I probably only have positive memories of it because of what it represents, but Spellbound nonetheless by coincidence holds a significant place in my personal music past. Then again, so does Mariah Carey's Emotions. So does Boyz II Men's Cooleyhighharmony. I'm a sick, sick man.