Styles’ retro-rock looting isn’t an isolated incident, however. And just as things started to get a little louder and more angry (thank you, Donald Trump!), along comes Harry Styles with “Sign of the Times,” a throwback to the crooners of the 70s. They were followed by a parade of sensitive, introspective indie rockers who saw no reason to find an electric guitar and turn it up to 11. The mellow phenomenon returned in the late 00’s, led by the beardy banjo guys in Mumford and Sons. Captain and Tenille cooing about “Muskrat Love.” America and their “Horse with No Name.” Add in Dan Fogelberg, Jim Croce, Harry Chapin, James Taylor, a bunch of Eagles songs, the Little River Band and a slew of others and AM radio was all mellow, all the time. David Gates and Bread getting all sappy and sensitive. It was the culmination of a decade worth of hits that made her one of the prime figures in that most unfashionable of popular music genres - easy listening or, as it came to be known, adult contemporary.The middle 70s were a hideous time for people who loved rock.

“Physical” also pushed her early successes on the country charts into history, becoming a pop perennial as enduring as “Grease,” but it didn’t open another chapter in her career. Spending 10 weeks at the top of the Billboard charts, “Physical” became the kind of hit that redefined Newton-John’s public persona, helping to soften the blow of “Xanadu,” the 1980 roller-disco extravaganza that effectively brought her silver screen dreams to a close. That simmering sense of seduction could reach a boil, as it did when she closed out “Grease” duetting with John Travolta on “You’re the One That I Want” while dressed in skin-tight leather or on the video to her 1981 smash “Physical,” where she happily played a seductress on the prowl.

But Newton-John, who died on Monday from breast cancer at age 73, was never truly was a bad girl - whether she sang country or disco, she specialized in the mellowest rock - yet a key part of her appeal lay in how her soft touch seemed sensuous, not saccharine. Olivia Newton-John played a good girl gone bad in “Grease,” the movie that turned her into a superstar in 1978.

70s soft rock music