A fond farewell to Olivia Newton-John, 26 September 1948 to 8 August 2022.
I saw Grease on it's first release at the cinema in 1978, aged 7, and fell in love with Olivia Newton-John (although, in fairness, I loved all of the Pink Ladies) and I've lost count of the number of times I've seen it on TV since. Not that I actively seek it out or own the VHS, DVD, Blu Ray... but it's one of those films that's so embedded that a flick through the channels, a line of dialogue, a bars of a song, and I've found myself hopping on for the rest of the ride.
With the sad news of Olivia's passing, I'm guessing that clips and quotes from Grease will be all over the blogosphere and social media today, so I've opted for something else, but equally embedded in my young mind.
First off, I'll admit that I've never seen the movie musical Xanadu, which came out in 1980. Depending on which reviews you read, it's either brilliantly ambitious or woefully underwritten. However, it did contain a couple of pop song gems in the title track (with Electric Light Orchestra) and follow up single Magic. Xanadu spent two weeks at #1 in the UK whilst Magic managed a less impressive peak of #32.
I was less enamoured with follow up single Physical with it's, let's face it, pretty shonky video even for 1981. I'd assumed it was also a #1 as it felt like Top Of The Pops was always showing it (or at least an extract with the allegedly "racy" bits excised). I was surprised to find it only got as far as #7, although it managed 12 weeks in the Top 40.
Anyway, I still can't bring myself to post a link to that song/video so here's Goldfrapp performing a re-titled cover version of Physical in 2020, having originally recorded it as a B-side to her single Utopia in 2001.
