Opposites Attract
| Opposites Attract | |
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| Paula Abdul w / The Wild Pair | |
| publication | November 28, 1989 |
| Genre (s) | Pop , hip-hop |
| Author (s) | Oliver Leiber |
| album | Forever Your Girl |
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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Opposites Attract is a pop song that the music producer Oliver Leiber wrote in 1988. It was recorded by the American pop and R&B singer Paula Abdul together with the duo The Wild Pair , consisting of the singers Tony Christian and Marc Gunn, and was first released on Abdul's debut album Forever Your Girl . The single reached # 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 10, 1990 and was awarded gold in the United States for more than 500,000 units sold.
Emergence
Leiber had already composed two pieces for Paula Abdul's debut album, The Way That You Love Me and Forever Your Girl . There was one last song missing and Gemma Corfield of Virgin Records asked Leiber to write it. Leiber had just got an Akai MPC 60 and started experimenting with it. The result of these experiments was a simple two-bar pattern , consisting of a bass line and drums - track , which formed the basis of the composition. Corfield liked the piece and asked Leiber to write a text on it. The idea for the text came about by chance when Leiber spent the waiting time in a shop for used books after a car broke down. He was fascinated by the titles of the cheap books and he made a note of them, one of them was Opposites Attract (German: opposites attract ). So the title of the song was fixed. With the text, he was inspired by the relationship with his first girlfriend, a Norwegian, who was essentially the opposite of him.
For the recordings Leiber got the support of the singing duo The Wild Pair , consisting of Tony Christian and Marv Gunn. He knew the two of them from the recordings for the soundtrack for The Bright Lights of the Big City and had already worked with them on the recording of the two pieces he had written for Abdul's debut album. Christian and Gunn recorded their vocal tracks in a studio in Minneapolis , Paula Abdul in Los Angeles . Leiber had the two singers sing the complete song and only later decided which lines of text Paula Abdul should sing. When this was determined, he blocked out the singing of Christian and Gunn in the places that Abdul was supposed to sing.
Music video
The song is known for its lavish music video . Directed by Candace Reckinger and Michael Patterson. In the music video, Paula dances, raps and sings with a cartoon character named MC Skat Kat, who was created by Reckinger and Patterson for the video. Christian and Gunn aka The Wild Pair gave MC Skat Kat their voices. A funky intro with rap singing was created for the video , performed by Romany Malco . The MC Skat Kat character pays homage to Gene Kelly , who dances with Jerry, the mouse of Tom and Jerry , in the film Vacation in Hollywood . The visualization of the character was based on ideas from Abdul, it was animated by Disney employees. The success of the single and the video resulted in several films and series as well as an album with MC Skat Kat.
With the music video, Abdul won a Grammy at the 1991 Grammy Awards in the "Best Short Form Music Video" category.
Commercial win
Opposites Attract became one of the most successful singles in 1990 and reached # 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 10, 1990 . It was Paula Abdul's fourth number one hit in the US and also the fourth number one hit from her debut album. Opposites Attract reached in Canada number one and number 1 in Australia . It also became Paula's fourth number one hit in Canada and Paula's first in Australia. In the United Kingdom , the single reached number two in the singles charts as Abdul's most successful single there. In the German single charts , the single missed the top 10 in 14th place.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sources for chart placements: DE / AT / CH / UK , accessed on March 8, 2013.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits . Updated and Expanded 5th Edition. Billboard Books, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-8230-7677-2 , pp. 751 .
- ↑ Ron Wynn: MC Skat Kat and the Stray Mob. Allmusic , accessed March 8, 2013 .
- ↑ a b Tanner Stransky: 20 Years Ago: Paula Abdul hits No. 1 with 'Opposites Attract'. Entertainment Weekly, February 19, 2010, accessed March 8, 2013 .