By 1977, Olivia Newton-John found that she needed a change. Her fortunes in the country music market well had run dry, though country music purists hadn\u2019t exactly welcomed her with open arms. Even when she won Female Vocalist of the year and Record Of The Year for \u201cI Honestly Love You,\u201d Olivia would continue to struggle in proving the naysayers wrong.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
And so, when the time came for Olivia to switch musical genres and basically put her entire career on overdrive, she was offered the prime lead role of Sandy in the film Grease<\/i>. Like her character, Olivia would be turned from a sweet girl from the sticks of Australia into a leather clad, sexed-up pop goddess literally overnight. Olivia\u2019s success on the big screen would be short-lived, however, when her next two films, Xanadu <\/i>and Two Of A Kind<\/i>, <\/i>tanked at the box-office. Personally, I liked those two films better than Grease<\/i>, but then again, I\u2019m used to being in the minority. <\/p>\n
What was supposed to be an on-screen reunion between Newton-John and her leading man from Grease<\/i>, John Travolta, turned out to be a dud when it came to public response to Two Of A Kind<\/i>. The two stars will forever be linked as Danny and Sandy, and that is that. Under any other name or as different characters, it just won\u2019t be the same. <\/p>\n
Say what you will about both Xanadu <\/i>and Two Of A Kind<\/i>, but Olivia never looked or sounded better than at that point of time in her career. There was even something called Physical <\/i>in between the two film projects. When the title track of that album went on to become the longest running number one hit of the ’80s, Olivia\u2019s place in pop music history was perfectly cemented. The transition out of country music turned out to be worth it and it was Olivia Newton-John who would help pave the way for even more daring females like Madonna to break through and become successful in their own right. <\/p>\n
Speaking of Madonna, many comparisons can be found between her and Olivia. Both have had less than stellar results in being taken seriously as legitimate actresses. Both have been through rocky marriages and messy divorces. And both knew how to market themselves. Perfect case in point are the soundtracks to Who\u2019s That Girl <\/i>and Two Of A Kind<\/i>. Since they are both films in which they starred in, it came to no one\u2019s surprise that each soundtrack would be dominated by their own music. Unlike the films, the music was what became the real deal. <\/p>\n
Olivia may not have been able to return to the top of the charts, but her awesome single \u201cTwist Of Fate\u201d came pretty darn close. She would also make a dent on the Adult Contemporary chart with the John Travolta duet, \u201cTake A Chance.\u201d\u00a0 My personal favorite, \u201cLivin\u2019 In Desperate Times\u201d would also become a single, as did Patti Austin\u2019s festive contribution, \u201cIt\u2019s Gonna Be Special.\u201d The other Olivia Newton-John track, \u201cShakin\u2019 You\u201d is one of her most moving ballads and was even made into a music video. <\/p>\n
Elsewhere on Two Of A Kind<\/i>, you can find strong entries by the likes of Chicago, Boz Scaggs, Journey and Steve Kipner, as well as an instrumental piece by Olivia\u2019s close personal friend, David Foster. An interesting note of trivia is that Journey would also be a featured artist on the soundtrack to Madonna\u2019s first film, Vision Quest<\/i>. <\/p>\n
After Two Of A Kind<\/i>, Olivia would put her film career on the back burner and her album releases would be fewer and farther between. Hard as she may have tried, she no longer had the youthful star quality or mega-watt voltage that Madonna brought onto the scene.\u00a0 Needless to say, the torch would be passed and the MTV generation would be forced to carry on without Olivia Newton-John. But before video killed the radio star, it was Olivia who truly reigned supreme. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":28691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5993],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40181","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-original-motion-picture-soundtrack","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40181"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40181"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}