“Xanadu” by Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra released

Xanadu Olivia Newton-John with Electric Light Orchestra

Writer(s): Jeff Lynne (see lyrics here) Released: June 6, 1980 First Charted: June 21, 1980 Peak: 8 US, 9 CB, 4 HR, 2 RR, 2 AC, 11 UK, 6 CN, 2 AU, 2 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.2 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 29.55 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: After the huge success of the 1978 movie Grease and its soundtrack, it made perfect sense to put Olivia Newton-John in another music-themed movie accompanied by a soundtrack dominated by her singing. However, the 1980 movie Xanadu – which featured famous dancer Gene Kelly in his final role – was a flop. The movie starred Olivia Newton-John as a Greek muse who inspires Michael Beck to open a roller derby. As Songfacts.com notes, “It’s basically a roller-disco fantasy made at a time when (a) disco, (b) roller-skating, and (c) fantasy all became as dead as fried chicken.” SF The soundtrack still did well, selling more than 2 million copies in the U.S. and reaching #4 on the Billboard album chart. Olivia’s song “Magic” topped the Billboard Hot 100 and the title cut was a top-10 hit in the U.S. and a chart-topper in the UK. The song “Suddenly,” a duet with Cliff Richard, was also a top-20 hit. “Xanadu” was written by Jeff Lynne, whose Electric Light Orchestra populated half the soundtrack and contributed two more top-20 hits from the soundtrack. Electric Light Orchestra provided the backing instrumentation for “Xanadu” while Lynne added backing vocals alongside Olivia Newton-John’s lead vocals. He has said this is his favorite song he has written WK although some ELO fans were turned off by what they considered music veering too much into disco territory. SF The phrase “Xanadu” was used in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” as a reference to the fictional land where Khan ordered a dome to be built. The word has come to mean paradise. In the classic film Citizen Kane, Xanadu was the name of the mansion of media mogul Charles Foster Kane. In 2000, Jeff Lynne released a newly-recorded version of “Xanadu” on the Electric Light Orchestra box set Flashback which featured his vocals. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Electric Light Orchestra SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 8/6/2022.