Paula leads us a merry dance .sx Marcus Berkmann .sx LISTENING to Paula Abdul's new album , you realise just how much pop music has changed in the age of MTV .sx By any normal standards , Spellbound ( Virgin America ) isn't really a pop record at all ; it's a soundtrack , to a series of videos that probably haven't yet been made .sx Miss Abdul , who used to be best known as a dancer and choreographer , is a product of our times :sx living proof that willpower and marketing can create success , if for some reason talent is hard to come by .sx Her voice , for instance , is nothing very much - a nasal chirp in the Minogue family tradition - and beside it even Madonna's vocal limitations fade into insignificance .sx She's no songwriter , either - her occasional credits seem to be more an act of politeness than a sign of any burning creative urge .sx No , she remains primarily a dancer , and if these songs have a strangely incomplete air , that's probably because we haven't seen her dance to them yet .sx Whoever is calling the shots here , whether it's Miss Abdul or various marketing men in suits , they certainly know how to put together a commercial pop album that will sell trillions .sx Spellbound is so calculated that you can't help but admire it .sx There are the acres of modish dance-pop from the latest hip producers , in this case V. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Lord from The Family Stand .sx There's the token Prince song , produced by the mini-maestro under another of his silly pseudonyms ( Paisley Park) .sx And there's the traditional Stevie Wonder guest star harmonica solo , which not surprisingly sounds like all of his other 478,875 guest star harmonica solos .sx And if the dance stuff doesn't work - and music fashions are as fickle as any - there's still crossover potential , thanks to two tracks produced by adult rock's current favourite , Don Was .sx These are so utterly unlike anything on the rest of the album - real instruments , nice tunes , no electronic percussion at all - that you instantly assume they have been put on the album by mistake .sx But no , the sleeve notes say otherwise , and I imagine that the millions of Miss Abdul's teeny fans who snap this up in the first week of release will find it all deeply confusing .sx Few observers would have predicted that Natalie Cole's latest single , a slightly ghoulish duet of Unforgettable with her long-deceased Pa Nat King Cole , would have been the massive hit it's become , but then good taste and the charts are rare bedfellows .sx I was vaguely dreading the accompanying album , Unforgettable ( Elektra ) , expecting more of the same , but happily Natalie has decided to record the rest of her father's best-known songs by herself , with no apparent assistance from beyond the grave .sx EVEN so , it seems a strange career move .sx Miss Cole has spent more years than I can remember trying to escape her illustrious parent's shadow , and with her last two successful albums had by and large succeeded .sx I bow to no one in my virulent loathing of the song Miss You Like Crazy , but it was much-loved by millions and certainly added quite a few pennies to the Cole fortune .sx Unforgettable , though , is a tame and unnecessary piece of work .sx The tone , predictably , is unequivocally sentimental , and while Miss Cole's readings aren't bad , her heart doesn't seem to be in it .sx I suspect she felt she just had to get it out of the way - it was a duty that as Nat's daughter she eventually had to bear .sx Meanwhile , James Brown's release from prison has brought the predicted upturn in his career - wildly praised live shows , a massive box set of his best material , and now even a new album , Love Overdue ( Scotti Bros) .sx It would be nice to report that his days of reflection and contemplation in the slammer have produced a profusion of new ideas , but this is very much business as usual - Seventies funk , just as Brown invented it , with no concessions to current soul trends .sx It's not quite as loose-limbed as it was 15 or 20 years ago , but then neither is Brown , who can hardly be blamed for coasting after all he has achieved .sx Coasting this undoubtedly is , though - some songs chug , others positively droop - and anyone who feels that the time has come to invest in some James Brown would be better to stick with the box set , Startime ( Scotti Bros) .sx That's the real business .sx BEST album of the week , by about a parsec , is The Jam's Greatest Hits ( Polydor ) , a 16-track compilation that will delight all those thirtysomethings who have been wondering how white pop music went so tragically wrong .sx By today's CD standards , of course , these three-minute wonders sound almost primitive , but their energy , attack and sheer unbloodied tunefulness is wonderfully refreshing after the studied mediocrity of a Paula Abdul .sx The Jam were one of pop's greatest singles bands , and this is a timely memento of their brief heyday .sx Nothing to make Pip squeak .sx by PETER PATERSON .sx THE VERY title of Great Expectations sets a challenge for anyone filming Charles Dickens's most autobiographical of novels .sx And thanks to TV , almost everyone is able to judge any new production , if not by the book itself , then by the yardstick of David Lean's classic 1946 version .sx The opening scene , therefore , where Pip is frightened in the churchyard by the escaped convict Magwitch , must shock the audience as profoundly as Finlay Currie managed in one of the cinema's most terrifying moments .sx Alas , HTV , in association with Disney , despite having secured the services of Hannibal Lecter , the awesome killer from the current film shocker , The Silence Of The Lambs , failed to achieve the heart-stopping terror that Lean managed to inject into the scene .sx Anthony Hopkins , as Magwitch , was just too much of a designer convict , with a fashionable scarf around his head reminiscent of recent duels on the Centre Court at Wimbledon .sx The young Pip , too , played by Martin Harvey , was prematurely well-dressed for the scion of a poor blacksmith's household , who is only later to come into money .sx There was on link , however , with the Lean film - Jean Simmons , who played Estella all those years ago , is now the reclusive Miss Havisham , and looking still far too attractive to be entirely convincing .sx This first of six episodes was a decent and straightforward effort .sx But it slipped up in having the carol singers deliver an enthusiastic rendition of Away In A Manger :sx Dickens died in 1870 , 13 years before that carol was written .sx square Building a mini-series around the Holocaust is a good way to avoid the critics .sx The least they can say about a story like For Those I Loved , which deals with this sensitive historical event , is that its heart is in the right place .sx But that is about all that can be said for this Franco-Italian effort , starring Michael York , and apparently aimed more at the American market than our own .sx Last night's first episode ( of three ) opened with prosperous architect Martin Gray ( York ) , back from a business trip , being reunited with his wife and four children at their villa on the Riviera .sx Within minutes , however , the happy family idyll is shattered by a forest fire in which the wife and children , plus the family dog , die , leaving Mr Gray contemplating suicide .sx Urged on , however , by a posthumous message from his wife on his tape recorder , he decides to fulfil a promise by telling the story of his life .sx That takes us to Warsaw under the Nazi occupation , with York now playing his father , a Jewish community leader , and Jacques Penot handling the role of the youthful Martin Gray .sx A curiosity here is that the architect Gray has an American accent , while his father assumes Michael York's normal impeccable English .sx Some of the voice dubbing of the foreign actors is also fairly hit or miss .sx Much of the effort goes towards emphasising that some Poles - mainly criminals - helped the Jews when they were herded into the ghetto .sx It is said to be based on a true story , though some incidents - for example , the ease with which young Martin commuted to and from the ghetto , and his escape from a Gestapo hospital by feigning typhoid - looked distinctly far-fetched .sx From pop to the Pope .sx by ROBIN SIMON .sx THE major exhibition this autumn is one of the most spectacular for a decade as the pick of the Queen's pictures go on view in the new exhibition rooms of the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery .sx The story of the Royal Collection is a tale of inept monarchs , degenerate heirs to the throne , near-lunatics and wastrels who just happened to have excellent taste .sx The show revolves around this motley bunch , such as George III who lost the American Colonies , his father Frederick , Prince of Wales , who lost his life through being hit by a cricket ball , and Charles I who lost his head .sx Then there was George IV , perhaps the most aesthetically refined of them all , but physically revolting and grotesquely overweight .sx He was always debt-ridden yet hugely extravagant , staggering drunkenly from one scandal to another .sx The size of the Royal Collection defies belief , and hitherto it has defied every attempt to list it .sx Now a computerised inventory is under way to detail the 7,000-plus paintings - contrast the National Gallery's mere 2,500 - the half a million prints , the 3,000 miniatures , and the 30,000 Old Master drawings .sx And that is before we come to the 'works of art' , the quaint royal term for everything except pictures .sx There are thought to be more than 2 million of them distributed through the various palaces and houses in the form of sculpture , porcelain , silver , clocks , tapestries and furniture .sx AND the stunning selection of paintings on view at the National Gallery is quite unlike the usual art show because each room is given over to a particular royal collector or period of collecting , from the Tudors to Victoria and Albert .sx The result is startling , because we are used to the clinical and artificial divisions of museums according to country and chronology .sx This exhibition re-creates the stimulating chaos of the private collection .sx Vermeer's Music Lesson , a George III purchase , hangs near Guido Reni's sensuous Cleopatra - a 'poor Fred' acquisition - while the 'gold-ground' 13th century triptych of Duccio , the result of Prince Albert's advanced taste , is jumped up with Winterhalter , Landseer and Hans Baldung Grien .sx In the earlier Tudor and Stuart rooms we sense the more chilling use of art as propaganda .sx Hans Holbein was the chief of glory of Henry VIII's court but in addition to his unforgettable portraits he was kept hard at work enhancing the King's terrifying image and power .sx And Henry VIII could be quite crude in his approach .sx He persuaded an Italian artist to paint The Four Evangelists Stoning the Pope .sx Today it looks hilarious but it was commissioned in deadly seriousness .sx From the sublime to the ridiculous , and the Pop Art show at the Royal Academy .sx The best thing that can be said of the 'Pop' of Roy Lichtenstein and the rest , is that it can be fun .sx As such it is the classic 20th century art form - jokey , self-indulgent and ultimately trivial .sx It is equally hard to think of anything encouraging to say about the Tate's exhibition of the metal constructs of Sir Anthony Caro .sx Owing to a number of deaths in his profession he has graduated to the position 'Britain's greatest living sculptor' .sx If so , British sculpture is in a bad way .sx He is a barren artist .sx Some of his metal girders form a work called After Olympia which is 76ft long .sx It is said by the artist to be 'inspired' by the Temple of Zeus at Olympia .sx The ploy is typical of pretentious abstract work - the inflated title borrowing a spurious respectability from the great art of the past .sx It will be impossible to avoid all things Japanese this autumn when London is the setting for the Japan Festival 1991 .sx The major art shows are Japan And Britain at the Barbican and Visions Of Japan at the Victoria and Albert .sx