Paula Abdul Says Her Mom Thought 'Straight Up' Was the 'Worst-Sounding Piece of Crap' Upon First Listen

Jack IrvinTue, March 3, 2026 at 4:35 PM UTC

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Paula AbdulCredit: Shawn Stockman's On That Note/YouTube -

Paula Abdul appeared on a recent episode of Shawn Stockman's On That Note podcast

She looked back on first hearing a demo version of “Straight Up” that no one liked

Abdul believed in the song, which became a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100

Not everyone believed in Paula Abdul’s hit song “Straight Up” at first.

In a new interview on Shawn Stockman’s On That Note podcast, the pop star and TV personality looked back on first hearing a demo version of “Straight Up” that no one liked — but she believed in the song.

Abdul, 63, recalled a time when her mom, Lorraine, was “pissed off” about the idea of her daughter launching a music career. “I could hear her say, ‘I can’t believe she’s going to try and make a stupid album.’ Had she not said that, the next thing wouldn’t have happened,” she said.

The former American Idol judge explained Lorraine’s assistant, a 19-year-old girl, overheard their conversation about Paula getting a record deal and asked to submit a demo written by her boyfriend, “an aspiring songwriter [who’s] studying to be a nuclear physicist.”

“Two days later, my mom calls me hysterically laughing on the phone, like crying laughing,” said Paula, noting that Lorraine was unsure how to break the news to her assistant that her boyfriend’s song wasn’t good. “She goes, ‘Paula, it's the worst sounding piece of crap I've ever heard in my entire life… There are notes being sung that I've never even imagined that are even acknowledged or invented… It’s so bad.’”

Paula said the demo version of “Straight Up” featured “this guy singing completely off-key,” which made the mother-daughter duo begin “crying laughing.”

“[She] throws it in the trash, and I went, ‘Hm.’ I put my hand in the trash, and she goes, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘There’s something about this song,’” remembered Paula, who felt the song had a “magical” element.

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Lorraine, whom Paula described as having “perfect pitch,” couldn’t believe her daughter liked the demo. But the “Forever Your Girl” singer wanted to record the song, so she played the demo for her record label presidents in order to get the budget for a studio session.

“They're laughing at me and looking at me like I'm the craziest person in the freaking world,” she said. “And I'm laughing with them. I go, ‘I know it sounds awful… but I believe in it, and you guys believe in me.’”

Paula Abdul in December 2025Credit: Harmony Gerber/Getty

Upon getting approval and a “couple thousand dollars” for the recording session, Paula went to meet the aspiring songwriter and nuclear physics student named Elliot Wolf — whom she recalled looking like “a cross between Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg.”

Wolf claimed the label’s budget wasn’t enough to rent a studio, so Paula “recorded the song in his studio apartment in the bathroom” with “foam rubber” on the walls and a “jimmy-rigged microphone that had a thousand rubber bands on it.”

“I turned the song into the label. They hear it again. They go, ‘Well, this is a far cry from what you played us, but it’s a B-side at best,’” said Paula. “I said, ‘I think this should be my first single.’”

Ultimately, “Straight Up” was released as the third single from Paula’s debut album, 1988’s Forever Your Girl. The song went No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it’s known as one of her signature songs.

Forever Your Girl subsequently spawned three more chart-topping hits: “Forever Your Girl,” “Cold Hearted” and “Opposites Attract.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”