![]() Living in Malibu’s Paradise Cove, she focused on her family and her environmental advocacy. She married “Xanadu” actor-dancer Matt Lattanzi in 1984 and two years later they had a daughter, Chloe. Newton-John wound up lowering her profile from its fan-fueled peak, which had seen her smiling from glossy magazine covers regularly. “Two of a Kind,” which paired her again with Travolta a few years later, would do slightly better, but her career as a big-screen leading lady was dead in the water. In 1982, she started the Australian-style sportswear line Koala Blue.īut the 1980 roller disco fantasy musical film “Xanadu” had actually flopped. The single “Magic” and the sexy tune “Physical” would top the charts in 1980 and ’81, respectively, as Newton-John changed her style and her sound, moving toward a pop-rock blend. “It’s because if you’re beautiful, they figure you must be dumb and a no-talent.” “Why is it that if you look a little bit funky, the critics give you better reviews?,” she asked the Times reporter. ![]() Newton-John had lived with manager Lee Kramer at a time when “living with” wasn’t the norm, and she still wrangled with being pretty. I never had the nerve to break out before I did ‘Grease.’… Also, I’ve never been hit on so much in my life as when I first put on those pants.” “I’ve lived with this innocent, clean-cut image for so long that at first, I was really frightened to do something different. “I’m into a lot of freaky things lately,” she told The Times that year. Newton-John released album “Totally Hot” in 1979, bringing with it hot-pink stretch pants and black leather outfits. Other stories mentioned a need for more security when she played in Las Vegas if “the men in the audience get any more enthusiastic” than they were at one midnight show. “It is easy to form this opinion from listening to her records but it is not possible to cling to it after seeing her in concert.” “Olivia Newton-John is often accused of having a very unsubstantial voice and only one asset - beauty,” Dennis Hunt wrote in a 1976 Los Angeles Times review of her show at the Greek Theatre. Still, despite her success and her rabid fan base, many critics took shots at her singing, saying she had no range and was just “another pretty voice.” 1 on the Billboard 200.Īnd Newton-John was beautiful. She was on TV specials and opened for Charlie Rich, the Smothers Brothers and Don Rickles in Las Vegas, then headlined on her own. She garnered the Country Music Assn.’s female vocalist of the year award in 1974, beating Dolly Parton, Tanya Tucker, Ann Miller and Loretta Lynn. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 that year, ahead of “Have You Never Been Mellow” that year. She won female country vocal performance for “Let Me Be There” in 1974 and pop vocal performance and record of the year for “I Honestly Love You” in 1975. But it was a joy to revisit so much great, groundbreaking music.The Grammys came quickly. Getting our list down to 80 was a real struggle (sorry, Dire Straits’ Making Movies and George Benson’s Give Me the Night). July 18th was an especially rough day for mopey punk fans, who were forced to choose between Echo and the Bunnymen’s Crocodiles (Number 72) and Joy Division’s Closer (Number 10), and headbangers had it rough on April 14th, the release day for Iron Maiden’s self-titled debut (Number 41) as well as Judas Priest’s British Steel (Number 18). This kind of consumer crisis came up all the time in 1980. If you walked into a record store on October 8th, and you only had enough cash for one record, you were really in a bind, because Prince’s Dirty Mind (Number Three) and Talking Heads’ Remain in Light (Number Four) both came out that very same day. What came out of it all this was, arguably, the greatest year for great albums ever. Meanwhile, the classic artists who’d defined rock, country, and R&B were going strong, either by responding to the changes around them (Pete Townshend, Genesis), sticking to their guns (Van Morrison, Neil Young), or getting even weirder than they were in the Seventies (Bob Dylan). Metal was getting meaner, faster, and sharper. ![]() Every style of music was fragmenting and evolving in ways that would’ve been hard to imagine just a couple of years ago, especially punk and New Wave, which were mutating into synth-pop, post-punk, goth, the New Romantic movement, the two-tone ska revival, the very beginnings of indie rock, and more. ![]() It’s fitting that the Clash’s London Calling, which is ranked Number One on our list of the best albums of 1980, came out in January of that year, and if you listen to the records that follow it on the list, there’s a palpable sense of clearing away the past to invent the future. In terms of music, the new decade started off like someone had fired a starter’s pistol. It was the end- the end of the Seventies - and everyone was more than a little antsy to get going on whatever was about to come next.
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