Keep your filthy paws off my silky drawers
Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts.
18/02/79 : Grease OST - Various Artists
Yes, it's a film soundtrack which would normally be excluded but a) it's definitely culturally significant for anyone who was around back then and b) it's mostly original numbers, plenty of which are absolute bangers - so it get's included. Although it will be interesting to see how many of the tracks I don't remember in the slightest.
Well, remembering the tracks isn't a problem at the front end of the album starting as it does with "Grease", "Summer Nights", "Hopelessly Devoted To You", "You're The One That I Want", "Sandy", "Beauty School Dropout", "Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee" and "Greased Lightnin'" - you can't fault that as a run of tracks. I like them all, but "Summer Nights" and "You're The One That I Want" are my favourites at least partially due to familiarity (they've got 16 weeks at #1 between them) but Olivia and John both do a great job with the vocals. It's also odd how disco "Grease" is but still somehow fits in with the general vibe.
However, it then goes on a run of about ten tracks which are mostly remarkably forgettable, even more so in the context of what came before - "Born To Hand Jive" was the only one I really remembered, although at 4:37 feels to go on for ages in comparison with the other tracks. Fortunately, Stockard Channing (the 33 year old teenager) comes back to rescue things before the end with "There Are Worse Things I Can Do" which is a great performance of a great song, Olivia reprises LAMISD and then the whole gang gets together for "We Go Together" - before we get a very out-of-place instrumental and another version of "Grease" for no obvious reason. So, all in all, this is one very fine album hiding in a double album - I imagine every household played disc 1 considerably more than disc 2.
We're at #15 in the chart this week on their 34th week of a 47 week run, with it having peaked at #1, only for thirteen consecutive weeks. I was surprised to see it's never been back in the charts - but then I realised that, at some point, it became ineligible for the main chart but it's spent 982 weeks on the compilation chart (including the past six years). It's also spent 1228 weeks on the soundtrack chart (including the past twenty years!), which is the longest of all the current albums on the soundtrack chart, ahead of Pulp Fiction (1172 weeks), Top Gun (1152) and Dirty Dancing (1145).
The top five this week were Blondie, Bee Gees, the Action Replay compilation, Elvis Costello and a Marty Robbins compilation - errrr, who? Apparently he was a US Country & Western singer (and NASCAR driver) who was pretty big over there from the 50s until his death in '82, but only ever had two albums chart over here - Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, which we did mention in passing here and spent one week at #20 (when there were only 20 albums in the chart) and this one, which spent an improbable fourteen weeks in the chart nineteen years later. And, continuing the general "huh?" theme, the highest new entry was Bill Nelson's Red Noise (#33) - Bill Nelson is obviously best known as the man behind Be-bop Deluxe who we have mentioned in passing here and we may yet meet in '76. Bill may never been a NASCAR driver, but he is actually still plodding on out there and released an album last year.
Wikipedia has a decent amount on the album (178 milliPeppers) but I spent quite some time being diverted down rabbit holes around the film and the various actors and singers involved. A surprising number of people involved are still alive - the only Pink Ladies and T-Birds we've lost are Olivia Newton-John and Jeff Conoway, who played Kenickie (and was in the original Broadway production). Even more surprisingly still here are the Frankies - Avalon, who is 84, still active and has been married to Kathy for 62 years and they have EIGHT children and Valli, who is 91, still active and only has six children, but has had four wives to make up for it. And, of course, "Grease" was co-written by Barry Gibb (two wives, but 55 years and 5 kids with Liinda, his second wife) who is the only Bee Gee still with us.
Some other things I found out and particularly enjoyed were that Stockard Channing (four husbands, no children and still working at 81) made her TV debut on Sesame Street, Eddie Deezen (who played Eugene, never married and has no kids) was actually almost a teenager at the time and still looks remarkably similar (I have a slight suspicion he might dye his hair) and Richard Gere played the part of Danny when the musical opened in London in '73 (Elaine Paige also played Sandy later in the run).
Back to the album, I should also mention that six of the tracks were by Sha-Na-Na who I'm pretty certain very few people remember despite them having played Woodstock and being active from '69-'22 and three of the tracks were by Cindy Bullens, who has since transitioned and is now Cidny Bullens (see what he did there?) and is also still active - a load of people seemed to get a long career out of this film. Critically, the album was well received (except by our old mate Robert Christgau) although retrospective reviews do point out the varying quality of the album. Commercially, it did OK, I guess - it only got to #3 in Portugal, but it made up for that disappointment by getting to #1 everywhere else and has sold over thirty million copies globally.
So it's gotta be pretty cheap at discogs.com, right? Yup - a quid will get you a near mint version but there was a limited edition pink gatefold rerelease in '19 that will set you back £243 - wowzers! I really liked this album because there are some absolutely blinding tracks on it. Yes, there are some surprisingly dull and forgettable tracks as well - but who really cares about them these days?
.jpeg)
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment