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"I'm playing it cool/With my homegirl, Paula Abdul".
In many respects, this is an awful record. And yet in some it's a good one. Obviously it's ridiculous, but it seems to buy so wholeheartedly into the ridiculousness as to deflect criticism. There's no way you could ever attempt to accuse this song of taking itself too seriously, of trying to make a point, or of being any more than daft entertainment; you pretty much have to take it or leave it.
Paula Abdul wasn't as big a star in the UK as she was in her homeland at this time (four US Number One singles from the same album!) but she certainly still made an impact at times, and this is a song that I remember hearing plenty at the time: I even remember the video, in which Abdul and MC Skat Kat demonstrate that their affection for each other is so strong as to transcend the minor detail that she's a human being and he's a drawing of a cat. Often when I go back to write these things I'm very conscious of the effect that my age has on my opinions; I suspect that if I was a decade older or younger, I'd hate this. Even if you'd asked 10 years before now I might have - but today I feel that the embrace of novelty has made this endure better than her other, more nominally serious singles. You can always ask me again in 2019.
Oh, and MC Skat Kat? He went solo. Really.
Also appearing on: Now 14, 20, 21
Available on: Forever Your Girl
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