When a record company is intent on milking an urban contemporary or dance-pop artist's popularity for all it's worth but doesn't have any new material to release, the logical solution is an album of remixes.
Paula Abdul was still extremely popular at the dawn of the 1990s when Virgin released this weak collection of dance-oriented remixes. "Straight Up," "Knocked Out," "Cold Hearted," and other songs first heard on
Forever Your Girl were pretty forgettable to begin with, and these remixes make the material seem even more faceless and robotic than before.
Abdul's detractors often argued that, like
Milli Vanilli and
New Kids on the Block, she was a perfect example of style and image over substance. And nowhere is that more painfully obvious than on
Shut Up and Dance. With so much excellent dance music having come out in the early '90s (everything from Black Box to
Soul II Soul to
Inner City), listeners would do well to pass on this CD. ~ Alex Henderson