ABDUL`S DUES

Paula Abdul is not too proud to defend herself.

Sitting in the back of a limousine taking her to rehearsals for her first headlining concert tour, the singer-dancer-choreographer is reflecting on the yin and yang of a career that has whisked her from the relative anonymity of a basketball cheerleading squad to the heights of pop stardom, complete with endorsement deals and-a sign that one has really made it-her own recording label that hawks a cartoon cat who raps.

Her rise has been quick (three years) but hardly free, and the cost has been more than paying the proverbial artist`s dues. Abdul has been accused of not singing on her first album, of lip-syncing concerts, of employing a visual thinning technique to make her look svelte in her videos and of breaking up the marriage of another pop star.

That this has happened to her is not a surprise; Abdul`s milieu is dance- pop, a frothy kind of music that is seldom praised for its artistic merits. Often more visual than musical, its credibility is suspect-particularly after the Milli Vanilli fraud. Still, at 29, Abdul has encountered a career`s worth of controversy.

But the 5-foot-1 songstress fights back hard, even if her energy has been sapped by a 41-hour video shoot.

”All those incidents have made me a stronger person,” Abdul says with steely effect. ”One thing that has happened is I`ve bounced back a lot faster each time. I`m a sensitive girl, but I`ve learned not to be as sensitive. I don`t really have a choice. I can be weak and really care about each little thing that happens, or I can continue to do what I`ve set out to do. Not everything is a bed of roses, and I have to go through some down times to grow as a human being.

”But I know I`m not going to please everybody all the time. I don`t claim to be the best singer there is, the best dancer, but I know I`m good at what I do. I am a good entertainer. As long as I`m happy with what I`m doing and getting response from my fans, that`s what makes me happy.”

So far there`s been no problem in that area. In 1988, the San Fernando Valley-raised Abdul-the daughter of a French-Canadian mother and Brazilian-Syrian father, who divorced when she was 7-released her first album,

”Forever Your Girl,” and watched it sell more than 12 million copies worldwide and launch four No. 1 hits in the U.S., including ”Opposites Attract,” which launched the career of the animated MC Skat Kat, her co-star on the video.

The rewards of stardom were heaped on Abdul. She choreographed the last two Oscar Awards telecasts and Oliver Stone`s film ”The Doors.” She bought a 7,200-square-foot, $3.2 million house in Beverly Hills; her trophy case includes Grammy, Emmy, MTV and People`s Choice awards. She`s a pitchwoman for diet Coke and L.A. Gear. One opinion poll discovered that Abdul was the person most admired by high school seniors; a more recent survey named her the woman men were most interested in meeting under the mistletoe this holiday season.

In light of all this, you can actually believe Abdul when she says, ”I never thought it was going to be quite this way.”

Her second album, ”Spellbound,” has proven that ”Forever Your Girl”

was no fluke. Musically more mature and more ambitious than her debut, it has sold almost 3 million copies and scored two more chart-toppers in ”Rush Rush” and ”Promise of a New Day.”

But Abdul`s triumphs have been tainted by the controversies. Clearly she`s most angry about a lawsuit filed against Virgin Records, Abdul`s label, by Yvette Marine, a backup singer on ”Forever Your Girl” who claims she was not properly credited or compensated for essentially singing lead on three of the album`s tracks. Not even named in the suit, Abdul was so upset by Marine`s claims that she held a news conference to deny the charges.

”I worked very hard on that album,” she says now, ”and for a background singer to come out four years later-it made no sense and I wasn`t going to stand for it. When something happens like that, testing my credibility and my hard work at my expense, I`m not gonna stand for that.”

On a more personal level, Abdul may have been hit harder by reports of an affair with singer Jackie Jackson, including an aborted pregnancy. The matter was introduced in a recent Michael Jackson biography, seconded in La Toya Jackson`s recent kiss-and-tell book and trumpeted throughout the media. Abdul- who choreographed the Jacksons` ”Torture” video in 1984-reacted to the first report by canceling several interviews and declined to comment. Now she says that she never read the book and that the accusations ”are completely false.”

On other fronts, Abdul has acknowledged that she used backing tapes to boost her vocals during the 1989 Club MTV tour, but she finds silly the furor over her appearance on the most recent MTV Music Video Awards, which prompted the rumors of the video thinning technique.

”Paula Abdul is not a skinny girl,” she says, ”but Paula Abdul is not a heavy girl either-in fact, I`m thinner now than I was on my first album. But I happened to wear the wrong outfit on the MTV awards, an outfit that was not flattering on TV. It read well live-we got a standing ovation and everything seemed great.

”So I walked offstage feeling good, and everybody who saw it at home said, `What happened? You didn`t look very good.` I had to deal with that. It would be one thing if I had gained a lot of weight, but I haven`t. I made a mistake, but to be knocked down because of what I wore, it`s ridiculous.”

What bothers Abdul most about these disputes is that they sap attention from her music and the improvements she believes she`s making. Although it has its shortcomings-most notably the lack of a distinctive Abdul identity-”

Spellbound” is undeniably a step forward from ”Forever Your Girl.” With songs by Prince, John Hiatt and an exceptional group called the Family Stand, Abdul broadens her palette, capably handling slower love songs such as ”Rush Rush” and the harder dance grooves of ”Rock House.”

”She`s definitely for real as an artist in the sense that she has a vision and is able to go after that vision and realize it,” says Don Fagenson, who produced one track on ”Spellbound” and is married to Abdul`s main liaison at Virgin Records. ”Her vision isn`t rock `n` roll as Elvis defined it for us, but there`s a personality and character there that`s obviously appealing to millions of people.”

For her part, Abdul wanted to win respect for that particular talent. ”I didn`t want to make `Forever Your Girl Part Two,` even though it would be a safe bet,” she explains. ”I was really into the fact that I`d been growing as a singer, that I was a first-time writer on this album. That`s just my personality, trying to push myself to go further and be better. I`m never comfortable with just staying where I`m at.”

Ultimately, Abdul hopes to reach the stratum of a childhood hero, Gene Kelly, who she says epitomizes the kind of all-around entertainer she wants to be.

”I grew up just adoring all those old MGM musicals,” says Abdul, who expects to land a film role after her 32-week world tour wraps up. ”Back then, you had to do it all; to be a superstar, you had to sing and dance and entertain and not just stick to one thing. When I was growing into this business, my aspirations were to start on Broadway because that`s where I thought you could accomplish that. In pop, it seemed like everyone wants to label you as one thing and it`s `How dare you try to do more than one thing.` ”But I think it`s getting better now, I really do. What`s great about videos is you`re able to create that image and encompass all those areas. Now I feel that my recording career will let me do everything I want.”

Originally Published: November 21, 1991 at 1:00 AM CST