In 1979, Jeff Lynne began work on the music for Olivia Newton-John’s 1980 disco-new wave movie, Xanadu. Nonetheless, the contract that the Electrical Mild Orchestra frontman signed put constraints on him. Lynne thought the music he contributed was OK. As for the movie, he couldn’t watch it.
Why Jeff Lynne agreed to do Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Xanadu’
In 1979, ELO had been at their greatest with 1979’s Discovery. Then, based on the documentary Going Back to Xanadu, producer Joel Silver (Die Arduous and The Matrix) requested ELO to do the movie.
Lynne admitted that he wished to do the challenge as a result of Newton-John had signed on to be the lead actor in Xanadu. He mentioned, “I took it because I thought, well, I like Olivia. … She’s great. It would be nice to meet her.”
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Lynne mentioned he can’t watch Newton-John’s ‘Xanadu’
Whereas engaged on their a part of the soundtrack, Lynne needed to write songs beneath the tight constraints of his contract.
ELO drummer Bev Bevan advised Martin Kinch (per Ultimate Classic Rock) that recording the title monitor was exceptionally onerous.
“It was a really difficult song to record because Jeff had sent the demo of the song to the studio in Hollywood, and they had actually shot the dance sequence to the demo,” Bevan mentioned. “So once we got here to report it for actual, we needed to preserve in time with the demo, and the demo was not in time, so it was a little bit of a nightmare to truly report the factor.
“We were [at Musicland Studios] in Munich at the time doing it, and it became a very frustrating experience, making what should have taken a couple of hours took about three or four days, as I remember.”
In the finish, his 5 songs glad Lynne. “I’m really pleased with the music,” he mentioned in Going Again to Xanadu. Nonetheless, Xanadu flopped. All of Lynne’s onerous work was for nothing.
Lynne advised Rolling Stone (per LA Weekly), “I wrote half the songs, though I’ve never seen the thing. I don’t suppose anybody else has, either. It was supposed to be really bad. I don’t think I’ll ever see the movie after reading the reviews.”
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The producer thought the flop damage ELO
Xanadu was an entire flop. A yr after, ELO launched Time. Lynne thought some radio stations had been reluctant to play the album. Lynne blamed Xanadu throughout an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“It’s because of that film,” he mentioned. “They’re saying, ‘We don’t want to touch them after that bloody film.’ It’s because the film is so bad, and it’s a failure and we’re associated with it… It’s because the film is so bad and it’s a failure and we’re associated with it.”
Lynne additionally acknowledged that some backlash got here from many individuals’s emotions that ELO’s Xanadu songs had been too pop. Nonetheless, Lynne was trapped in his contract to present the filmmakers what they wished.
“Maybe it does have too much of a pop approach to it,” Lynne mentioned. “But that’s what they wanted. I had to give them what they wanted. I was trapped [by the contract].”
ELO didn’t survive for for much longer after Time and it might have been as a result of Xanadu. Nonetheless, Lynne by no means regretted doing the movie, and neither did Newton-John or anybody else. At the very least, “Xanadu” gave ELO their first and solely U.Ok. chart-topper.