Grease – 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
Soundtrack CD Set
Music:
B Sound: B+ Extras: B
When
Paramount Picture reissued Randal Kleiser’s 1978 monster hit film version of
the stage musical Grease five years
ago, it was the first time for most of the theater attendees to hear the great
soundtrack that accompanied the film in its 70mm blow-ups. You could not get the 4.1 mix in a 35mm
print, but digital sound changed that and the films sound was upgrades, cleaned
and presented in a still-impressive 5.1 mix.
Now, Universal/Polydor has issued an exceptional CD set of the
mega-selling soundtrack that fans will want to get immediately.
CD 1
offers the entire double vinyl album set on one disc, while CD 2 offers
remixes, medleys and alternate tracks that are very impressive throughout. Before we continue, here are the track lists:
Disc One
(artists
noted, except where the track is an instrumental)
Grease (Frankie Valli)
Summer Nights (John Travolta & Olivia
Newton-John)
Hopelessly Devoted To You (Olivia Newton-John)
You’re The One That I Want (John Travolta & Olivia
Newton-John)
Sandy (John Travolta)
Beauty School Drop-Out
(Frankie Avalon)
Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee (Stockard Channing)
Greased Lightnin’ (John Travolta)
It’s Raining On Prom Night (Cindy Bullens)
Alone At the Drive-In Movie
Blue Moon (Sha-Na-Na)
Rock N Roll is Here to Stay (Sha-Na-Na)
Those Magic Changes (Sha-Na-Na)
Hound Dog (Sha-Na-Na)
Born To Hand Jive (Sha-Na-Na)
Tears On My Pillow (Sha-Na-Na)
Mooning (Louis St. Louis and Cindy Bullens)
Freddy My Love (Cindy Bullens)
Rock N Roll Party Queen (Louis St. Louis)
There Are Worse Things I Could Do (Olivia Newton-John)
Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee
(Reprise by
Stockard Channing)
We Go Together (John Travolta & Olivia
Newton-John)
Love Is a Many Splendored Thing
Grease (Reprise by Frankie Valli)
Disc Two
Grease
Summer Nights
Hopelessly Devoted To You
You’re The One That I Want
Sandy (the previous four are dubbed
“Sing-A-Long” versions)
Greased Lightnin’ (John Travolta – Single Version)
Rydell Fight Club (Previously Unreleased
Instrumental)
Greased Up and Ready To Go (Previously Unreleased
Instrumental)
Grease Megamix (with You’re The
One That I Want, Greased Lightnin’ and Summer Nights
with the original vocals)
Grease Dream Mix (with Grease, Sandy and Hopelessly Devoted To You with the original vocals)
Summer Nights (Martian Remix with original
vocals)
You’re The One That I Want (Martian Remix with original
vocals)
That is a
bunch of tracks, but fans of the film and original musical know new songs were
written especially for the film, and they are now more associated with the film
than the original songlist. With that
said, let’s begin with the title song, which I think is the masterpiece of all
the tracks. First of all, it is written
by Barry Gibb, who is one of the most underrated lyricists of the last 50
years. No matter how many people, for
reasons personal and political, have tried to write him and his brothers off,
Barry Gibb’s ability to write lyrics at his best can go a few rounds with
anyone in music.
It is
also a myth that his words have never had anything to say. Even if we discount his work with Barbra
Streisand, Dionne Warwick, and Kenny Rogers, he has written or co-written some
of the most memorable songs for himself and his brothers under their solo names
and as (obviously) The Bee Gees. The
criticism of the new songs for the film versus the old is that the new
compositions were that they were made to be more commercial and lighten-up the
edgier, even raunchier nature of the original songs by Jim Jacobs and Warren
Casey. That idea has some validity, but
it is limited. It all comes down to the
title song.
Grease is not just some hip record that
wants listeners and movie viewers to get into a simple-minded “Grease” mood so
they can enjoy a bunch of songs connected to a narrative about boy/girl
relationships in the 1950s. With the
stylized, ideal 1950s the film presents, that is an even more likely criticism. That is very wrong, from the underrated
Bronte Woodward screenplay, to what Barry Gibb is really doing here.
As it
stands, the song Grease is in a class
by itself, very boldly expressing the absolute ground zero situation of
disenchanted, down teenagers who are just coming to self-awareness, realizing
(if they are lucky enough) that there is a way out to a better life and world,
if they can just somehow deal with reality and stay honest with the truth about
the way things are. This is not just
what we could now recognize as a Punk Rock or New wave axiom, it is downright existentialist!
Adding to
this is its lead singer, the great Frankie Valli of one of the greatest vocal
Rock groups all time, The Four Seasons.
Since their phenomenal run of unforgettable hits, all American classics,
Valli’s brilliant, distinctive, and unforgettable falsetto style was a major
component thereof. In the 1970s, that
sadly caught up with him, so his still-recognizable voice was somewhat
lost. Now older and with some wear, in
true Rock tradition, Valli refused to stop and started having solo hits and Oh What A Night (December 1963) became
another classic hit for them that is still resurfacing when you least expect
it. Gibb and company scored a real coup
with the still-viable Valli. To have him
of all singers sing these lyrics, no other male vocalist of the time could have
delivered them with more credibility (except maybe the recently deceased Elvis
Presley, maybe), wisdom and authenticity.
Since
kids feeling this way was becoming more explicit by the 1950s, it is the
perfect theme song for this film. It
spells out what Rock is really all about, even if its lyricist is not always
one considered to have total Rock credibility.
To use it to open and close the film is a brilliant bookending; one of
the greatest curtains-up, curtains-down in film history, even if we include (no
sacrilege) Marcel Carne’s Children of
Paradise (1945). That film may have
offered it more literally, but both films have a closer Fantasy genre element
going for them than one may have first considered.
Then
there are the songs by John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John. For being the stars, they may have had the
hits, but their songs in number are limited.
You have three duets, two solos for John, and only two solos for then
red hot Olivia! Despite that, their
presence is all over the film and their chemistry is for real, despite the
later Two of a Kind (1983). That project could not have been saved by any
set of stars!
Jacobs/Casey
wrote the duets Summer Nights and We Go Together, but it was Newton-John
hitmaker John Farrar who wrote You’re The
One That I Want, which does go
together very well with the original stage compositions. It also has more impact that We Go Together when thinking in terms of
a big film production, especially accompanied by Pat Birch’s on-target
choreography. Travolta has
Jacobs/Casey’s Greased Lightnin’ and,
new to the film, the Louis St. Louis/Scott Simon song Sandy, which never worked for this critic. Audiences even seemed more interested in the
dancing hot dog and bun on the drive-in screen.
Olivia gets a short, reprised version (snippet?) of Jacobs/Casey’s Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee (done so
memorably in the main version in the film by the great Stockard Channing) and
Farrar’s Hopelessly Devoted To You. To some, it may seem like a “woman who loves too
much” song and maybe wishy-washy, but the song never wallows in its lyrics,
making her transformation later work better.
It is also one of the best records Olivia ever cut.
The other
star vocal is Frankie Avalon, who lends his vocals on Beauty School Drop-Out.
Avalon is the non-swimmer who did all the Surf Cycle film with the great
Annette Funicello, but was also a good comic actor, which he combines well with
his singing style in one of the film’s best moments. Didi Conn was also hugely memorable in this
sequence, and helped to further make the film, though she has no songs to her
name on the soundtrack. Avalon turns out
to have been an investor in the original play, a smart move indeed.
Then
there is the material performed by Sha-Na-Na, Cindy Bullens, and Louis St.
Louis, which makes sense in the film, but does not always hold up outside of
it. Though competent and feeling like a
part of the film’s idea of the 1950s, it endures less favorably when taken out
of that context. Of course, if you do
get carried away with the film’s vision of the era, this works better. The barometer since the film’s release that
ages these tracks is Billy Joel’s An
Innocent Man, his 1984 album where he does an often remarkable (if not
always on the money) revisiting of the sounds of the same era. Uptown
Girl does a fair job of revisiting the early Frankie Valli, while other
songs conjured the Doo Wop sound with at least as much street credibility as
anything in this film. It may be unfair
to make direct comparisons, but they are both revivals and it is not
illegitimate to compare them on that level.
Also, the Joel album purposely stays unknowing (versus the more knowing
moments of this film) about the era. His
retro approach would not work with that realism.
The
instrumentals play like background music for the film, until you get to the
second CD. On the instrumental Grease, Gary Brown’s saxophone is too
subtle and “square” as compared to the empathetic Valli vocals. This proves how great Valli’s voice really is
on the song. Summer Nights, Hopelessly Devoted To You, You’re The One That I Want and
even Sandy fare better without any
instrumental attempting to substitute for a lead vocal.
In all
five versions, you can hear how well the layers of sound producing, arranging,
and engineering worked here. You get all
the backing vocals and sound cues, which is fun, because they were always
great. This is also much better than
some half-witted Karaoke/Muzak set-up.
This cut of Summer Nights
shows the cast off even better than the hit version, while Hopelessly Devoted To You in this version proves my earlier point
about Olivia’s vocals. You’re The One That I Want is especially
amusing with a male “want, want ,want, want” vocal climbing in the background
that you can hardly hear on the hit cut.
Instruments eventually drown it out here too.
The
Grease Megamix was hyped to death, but I was never too impressed. The Dream Mix works a bit better, but I
especially liked the Calypso mix on the Summer
Nights Martian Remix. You’re The One That I Want, Martian
Remix, is also interesting and though not Calypso-styled, but has a more modern
beat than anything 1950s. All these
mixes are from the 1990s, but I had only heard the Megamix.
In all,
the sound is the best I have heard these songs in 2-channel PCM CD Stereo,
though I enjoyed how the 5.1 mix sounded in the reissue. Sadly, the somewhat basic Widescreen DVD that
was (finally) issued by Paramount twice now (the Rockin’ Rydell reissue with more extras is reviewed elsewhere on
this site) only has Dolby Digital 5.1 AC-3, but there is some fullness here
missing from that DVD’s sound. It is
also a warmth I heard in the 5.1 theatrical presentation. I wonder when Universal/Polydor might do an
SACD (or now much less likely, DVD-Audio) of this material. Cross the multi-channel of the best film
sound with the sources for this CD set, and that would make a stunning
combination. With new HD-DVD and Blu-ray
formats, maybe Dolby True HD or DTS HD versions could surface with and/or
without the film footage in tact.
We would
not expect the bonus tracks to have that sound, but that is a possibility in
some cases. They sound really good here
and may not be available later, which is a reason to get this set now. Like other CD sets in the Deluxe Edition
series, this is likely to have a limited run, so fans should add this to their
collection soon. The packaging offers a
nice reminder of the big gatefold vinyl release and has a good booklet, if
lacking the kind of new liner notes this series has become known for.
There is
also talk of a Grease 3, but it is
barely in pre-production. Pat Birch
directed Grease 2 herself, and
though the 1982 sequel did not fare well back then, it has become a cult item
since with a bigger following than you’d think.
If done right, a Grease 3
could still work. Whether setting it in
the 1970s or 1980s, but a Disco setting would have to be done very carefully
with Travolta on board. As for the music
of the original, the Film Musical was dead for years, and MTV-movies or the
first Dirty Dancing were not a
substitute by a longshot. Whether we
will see a further revival beyond Moulin
Rogue and Chicago, who knows,
but the lack of one is not the reason people keep turning to the first Grease.
It is because it is a big production that a Hollywood studio made that worked at a time
when studios still cared about what they were making and releasing. A quarter century later, the film about the
most important American music movement of the 20th Century gains fans
everyday.
Grease is more than the word, or the
feeling, it is the last great pre-MTV Musical; a big screen celebration of
music and people that never fails to impress its audience with its energy,
excitement, humor, or joy. The soundtrack
has been part of that experience since day one, and this is the greatest way to
own it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
