Musical Montage: Olivia Newton-John and ELO “Xanadu”
An insane disco fever dream that, for some reason, came out in 1980, Xanadu was a gigantic bomb and but has become something of a bad movie cult classic, getting itself a Broadway musical version and being featured in an episode of How Did This Get Made?. The movie’s plot, at least somewhat, is that one of the Greek muses, played by Olivia Newton-John, arrives on Earth and she gets involved in a night club run by an album cover painter (Michael Beck) and Gene effing Kelly, who both become obsessed with ONJ’s Kira. A musical extravaganza, Xanadu featured music, obviously, from Newton-John but also Cliff Richard, The Tubes and Electric Light Orchestra, who teamed up with ONJ for the movie’s theme song, also titled Xanadu. The song hit number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 but it was a massive hit in Europe, hitting #1 in a ton of countries like France, Spain, the UK and more. You can check out the segment featuring the song from the movie below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDxcfTm1QTc
