Musical Montage: Grease
With the passing of Olivia Newton-John last week, we’re paying our respects with this week’s Musical Montage by featuring one of her most enduring contributions to pop culture, Grease. Co-starring with John Travolta, the 1978 musical classic followed Newton-John as Sandy, a transfer student from Australia who has a summer romance with greaser bad boy Danny Zuko (Travolta). When the school year starts proper, Danny keeps up his front of a non-romantic bad boy, which pushes Sandy away and Danny attempts to win her back while also trying to get his car Greased Lightning, ready for a big street race. The movie version of Grease was based on a 1971 stage musical and brought over many of the songs from that version while adding new ones. The movie’s soundtrack was the 2nd biggest album of 1978, behind fellow Travolta movie soundtrack Saturday Night Fever and the songs that were released as singles, including “You’re the One That I Want”, “Grease” and “Summer Nights”, were huge hits, all hitting #1 on the Billboard charts at some point. Another song “Hopelessly Devoted to You”, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song but it lost to “Last Dance” from the movie Thank God It’s Friday. The songs and the movie are still massively popular today, with a live televised version in 2016 on Fox and two upcoming TV shows on Paramount+ based in the Grease universe. Check out some of the songs from Grease below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i52mlmJtyJQ
