"Straight Up" is a song recorded by American singer Paula Abdul, which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and brought her widespread public attention. It was written and produced by Elliot Wolff.

The song is a mid-tempo dance tune. The synthetic lead trumpet sound comes from the Roland D-50 (preset 1-5). Daniel J. Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music praises the song as "hold[ing] a certain appeal over many, many listenings."

Paula says in a YouTube video that her mother found this song for her. She says that her mom knew someone whose boyfriend was an aspiring songwriter, and she got "Straight Up" as an 8-Track Demo. The Demo version was so bad that Paula's mom was "crying laughing" at it, and threw it in the trash. But Paula heard something she liked in it, and retrieved it. At that time she was a full-time choreographer, and on the side, late at night she was recording music. The music label didn't think the song was any good. But Paula made a deal with them that she would record 2 songs they wanted, which she didn't like, if they would let her do "Straight Up". The song was recorded at a cost of $3,000. Later a friend of hers told her that somebody with her same name was being played on a northern California radio station. "Literally, within 10 days I [it] sold a million copies." The song was originally recorded in a bathroom, and in the masters of the recording, you can hear someone in the next apartment yelling "Shut up". The Roland trumpet sound was previously used on Taylor Dayne's Tell It To My Heart.

"Straight Up" was the third single released from her debut album Forever Your Girl, after "Knocked Out" and "The Way That You Love Me." While the latter was enjoying success on the R&B charts, radio station KMEL in San Francisco started playing "Straight Up" from the album. The label decided to abandon "The Way That You Love Me" and refocus its attention on "Straight Up". The strategy paid off, as "Straight Up" was followed by three more number-one hits from the same album.

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