Vibeology

Album: Spellbound (1992)
Charted: 19 16
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Songfacts®:

  • This is a funky song about a funky relationship, or as Paula Abdul puts it in the song lyrics:

    Vibeology, now you ask what does it mean?
    Why, it's the study of the chemistry between you and me
  • In 1991, Abdul performed this song at the MTV Video Music Awards. It was an ambitious performance, with Adbul dressed as a man and blending in with her backup dancers before ripping her costume off about a minute in to the song. The elaborate choreography came at a cost to her vocals, as she was singing it live. (Early in her career, many of Paula's performances were lip-synched. She was part of the Club MTV Tour, which is where Milli Vanilli's tape skipped and exposed them as frauds.) Abdul's performance was cut from reruns of the show.
  • This was penned by the songwriters Peter Lord, Jeffrey Smith and Sandra St. Victor, who were in the band The Family Stand. The trio wrote the majority of Abdul's second album, Spellbound, which spawned two #1s - "Rush Rush" and "The Promise of a New Day" - and three Top 20 hits - "Blowing Kisses in the Wind" (#6), "Vibeology" (#16) and "Will You Marry Me?" (#19). Songfacts asked Lord what the album's magic formula was: "Never any formula other than writing great, well-structured songs."

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