Grease soundtrack
15. Grease
Album sales: 8,000,000
Release date: May 1978
Impresario Robert Stigwood was the man with the Midas touch in 1978. Saturday Night Fever was followed into the charts and movie theatres by his next project Grease. The musical had already established itself as a Broadway smash, but its transfer to the big screen with starring roles for John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John took it to an even higher level of popularity.
The movie version added four new songs that became the bedrock of its soundtrack. They included the John Farrar-penned “You’re The One That I Want” (the eighth best-selling single of all time with over 1.8 million sales), which, alongside the original score’s “Summer Nights”, became worldwide duet smashes for the film’s two main stars. The Bee Gee’s Barry Gibb penned the movie’s theme song, which sent Frank Valli to number one in the US for the first time in nearly 16 years. The album was Number One in the US charts for 21 weeks and spent 18 months in the Top Forty.
In the UK sales were almost as impressive. Grease spent 12 weeks at Number One and nearly a year in the charts.
Number One singles:
Grease; You’re The One That I Want
Grammy awards: None
Label: RSO
Recorded in:
Los Angeles, USA
Personnel:
Frankie Valli
John Travolta
Olivia Newton-John
Frankie Avalon
Stockard Channing
Cindy Bullens
Sha-Na-Na
Louis St Louis
Producer:
Robert Stigwood