This is a critical examination of Olivia Newton-John's 1981 album Physical and its cultural impact, particularly in her native Australia.

Physical marked a turning point in ONJ's career. With its explicit lyrics and suggestive accompanying music videos, Physical ushered in a newly sexualized Olivia Newton-John, who still couldn't quite shake her "good girl" image. The shift in her on-screen persona and her early adoption of innovative music videos are traced and analyzed to identify the implications of such image transformations on her career and how they aligned with the shifting gender roles and concepts of feminism in the 1970s and '80s.

This album also calls into consideration questions of genre, identity, and authenticity. The book interrogates, scrutinizes and contextualizes themes of national identity, including how popular culture reflects on national(ist) values, in contemporaneous Australian music. In so doing, this work challenges the parameters and gatekeeping of "authentic" Australian music. Concepts of authenticity and taste are relevant to the exploration of Newton-John's forays into country, adult contemporary and rock genres. While ONJ may have had claims to and resonances with a swath of genres, personas, and places to call home, this work puts forward that her music deserves a place in Australian popular music history.