#1 Alert!
Gold Record Alert!
Song#: 3947
Date: 06/24/1989
Debut: 65
Peak: 1 (1 week)
Weeks: 21
Genre: Dance-Pop
Pop Bits: By this point in time Abdul's debut album Forever Your Girl had been out for a year. Typically, a hit album would have already wrapped things up and been in decline, but Abdul's effort wasn't close to being done. After a very slow start, it began to take off thanks to an unexpected pair of #1 Pop hits including the gold-selling title track. With Abdul on a roll, a follow-up was necessary and this track was selected as the LP's fifth single. It was the perfect choice with the song becoming Abdul's third in a row to top the Pop chart while getting to #19 Dance. Once again it would sell well enough to go gold. The album would get to the double-platinum mark in July. However, Abdul wasn't done yet. The LP had a lot more gas left in the tank.
ReduxReview: Written and produced by Elliot Wolff, who provided Abdul with her first #1 "Straight Up," this was a hard hitting track that had great production and an excellent arrangement. Wolff performed everything except for the guitar and I think he knocked it out of the park. At the time this came out I wasn't really into Abdul at all so I didn't pay too much attention to this song. Nowadays I think it ranks right along side her previous two #1s as the best tracks from the LP. The darkly menacing urgent tune was a perfect follow up to the sunny "Forever Your Girl" and thanks in part to a highly successful video that was all over MTV, the song was an easy #1.
ReduxRating: 8/10
Trivia: The video for this song was directed by future Oscar nominee David Fincher. It was a riff on a scene from the 1979 musical drama All That Jazz directed by Bob Fosse and starring Roy Scheider. Co-written by Fosse, it was loosely based on his experience of simultaneously editing a film (1974's Lenny) while staging an upcoming Broadway musical (1975's Chicago). In one scene, the producers of the musical show up to see a number. The first half of "Take Off with Us" plays like a standard Fosse crowd-pleasing musical number that the producers love. But then the second half of the number starts and it turns into a dark erotic piece that is basically about having casual sex, which shocks the producers. Abdul's video basically mimics the whole scene, albeit in a more TV friendly way. All That Jazz would do well at the box office and would be a critical success as well. It would win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and go on to received nine Oscar nominations including Best Picture. It would win four including one for Best Original Song Score. The film would be the last live-action musical to be nominated for Best Picture for 22 years. In 2002, Moulin Rouge! would finally break the drought. However, the animated musical Beauty and the Beast would get a nod in 1992.
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