Grease: 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Written by Eric Olsen
Published January 18, 2004

Grease was a great movie not - the 1978 film version of the wildly popular stage musical starring John Tavolta and Olivia Newton-John squeezed a faux-'50s worldview and musical sensibility through a 20-year filter of wishful thinking that made Happy Days look authentic. This bizarre, mildly bawdy pastiche actually had a freaking DISCO title song, written by Barry Gibb and sung by Frankie Valli.

The film greatly expanded the scope, action and music of the musical, augmenting the original Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey songs ("Summer Nights," "Greased Lightnin'") with new ones by John Farrar ("Hopelessly Devoted to You," "You're the One That I Want") and Sha-Na-Na versions of '50s rock 'n' roll standards ("Blue Moon," "Hound Dog," "Tears On My Pillow").

Somehow, this exercise in across-the-railroad-tracks-romance retro nonsense captured the popular imagination with a combination of high spirits, star power and very catchy songs. Who doesn't remember - perhaps in spite of themselves - "Summer Nights," "You're the One That I Want," "Greased Lightnin'," "We Go Together"? The Deluxe Edition crams much guilty goodness on disc 2 with sing-a-long versions of several songs, the world famous "Grease Megamix" (I played that a few hundred times at dances in the '80s), and odd, Latin-based remixes of "Summer Nights" and "You're the One That I Want" from '98 by Martian.

Career media professional Eric Olsen is honored to be the founder and publisher of Blogcritics.org, which, quite frankly, rules - as do his wife and four children.
Keep reading for information and comments on this article, and add some feedback of your own!
Buy from Amazon.com
Grease - Deluxe Edition Grease - Deluxe Edition
Stockard Channing
Music,

Grease: 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
Published: January 18, 2004
Type:
Section: Music
Filed Under: Music: Broadway, Music: Classic Rock and Oldies, Music: Pop, Music: Soundtracks
Writer: Eric Olsen
Eric Olsen's BC Writer page
Eric Olsen's personal site
Spread the Word
Like this article?
Email this
Submit to del.icio.us Save to del.icio.us
RSS Feeds
All RSS Feeds (240+)
Comments on this article
BC articles by Eric Olsen
Music: Broadway
Music: Classic Rock and Oldies
Music: Pop
Music: Soundtracks
All Music Articles
Eric Olsen's personal weblog
All BC articles
All BC Comments

Comments

Want comments emailed to you? No spam, promise! Address:

Add your comment, speak your mind

(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/11834)

Personal attacks are not allowed. Please read our comment policy.





Remember Name/URL?

Please preview your comment!

Fresh
Articles
Fresh
Comments