Forever No. 1: Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Magic’

Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor the late Olivia Newton-John, who died this week at age 73, with Joe Lynch, Billboard’s executive digital director, east coast, celebrating the fact that flops can beget bops, as was the case with 1980’s Xanadu and its hit single “Magic,” her fourth No. 1.

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At the outset of Xanadu, the Olivia Newton-John-starring musical that followed Grease by two years, we see the one-time Sandy Olsson in a role that’s neither shy schoolgirl nor leathery vixen. Instead, she’s a roller-skating Grecian Muse from Mount Olympus who breezes into the life of a struggling artist — played by Michael Beck, hot off 1979’s The Warriors. After smooching him in the street and rolling away, they have their first real interaction inside a derelict theater, where the still-skating Muse teases and flirts with the confounded artist, as the strains of “Magic” echo throughout the empty space.

Like the entire Xanadu experience, “Magic” aims for a mixture of the strange and the sweet; unlike the film, which tanked at the box office in 1980 and helped inspire the creation of the Golden Raspberry Awards, the soundtrack’s lead single connected with audiences, becoming her fourth No. 1 on the Hot 100 when it unseated Billy Joel’s “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” (on the chart dated Aug. 2), and staying there for four consecutive weeks.

Much like Xanadu, “Magic” – written and produced by John Farrar, who worked with her on previous No.1s “I Honestly Love You,” “Have You Never Been Mellow” and “You’re the One That I Want” with John Travolta — doesn’t seem quite right at the start. The guitar tone is unusual, with the first chord strummed down and the second one up, making it feel, for a moment, as if the second chord was an accident on the part of the guitarist. It’s a mildly clanging, Pretenders-lite guitar riff that hints at discordant, but never quite goes there; sure enough, by the time the riff has rolled around for the fourth time, you’re beguiled by a tune that’s a touch off but unexpectedly angelic.

Perhaps that’s what Xanadu director Robert Greenwald, who would go on to helm documentaries targeting everything from Wal-Mart to the Iraq War to Rupert Murdoch, was hoping for when he paired Newton-John with Golden Era Hollywood icon Gene Kelly for a musical fantasy film with a soundtrack by Farrar and Electric Light Orchestra mastermind Jeff Lynne: Something that reads odd on paper but achieves a strange magic in practice. The thing is, unlike “Magic” (which wrapped 1980 as the third biggest song on Billboard‘s Year-End Hot 100), the film hits unusual notes without finding its groove — and most tragically, it fails to fail too spectacularly, meaning it’s not quite a so-bad-it’s-good cult classic, either.

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN, FOREVER NO. 1:
“I Honestly Love You” (1974) | “Have You Never Been Mellow” (1975) | “You’re the One That I Want” (1978)

One thing that does, work, however, in this stately pleasure dome is the music. ONJ presides over the hit soundtrack (No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart), which features an exhilarating mix of big band and hard rock on “Dancin’”; a delirious title track that answers the question, “What if Olivia Newton-John fronted ELO instead of Jeff Lynne?”; and a lovely ballad in the classic ONJ/Farrar vein with “Suspended in Time.”

But the centerpiece is “Magic,” which preceded the film’s release by three months and glided to the top spot of the Hot 100 by the time it hit theaters. “Come take my hand, you should know me/ I’ve always been in your mind” sings Newton-John at the top of the song. It’s a beautiful vocal, yes, but also a brilliant performance as an actor; her tones – cooing and ethereal on the verses, warm and throaty on the chorus – are perfectly suited to the role of Kira, who turns out to be Terpsichore, the Greek Muse of dance and chorus.

Unlike the Christian religion that followed, the Greeks liked their immortal gods to be fallible and fleshy, terrifying and tantalizing at the same time. And the Muses — lithe, gorgeous women who inspired poets and bards while remaining forever elusive and a bit dangerous (nine presumptuous girls were turned into screeching birds for daring to liken themselves to the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne) — were such a compelling part of Greek mythology that, wouldn’t you know it, “muse” is still the word we use to describe those who inspire artists to this day.

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While the movie certainly hasn’t gone down as essential viewing, even for Newton-John fans, the fact that she played a classical Muse on the big screen seems even more fitting now that the world is mourning her loss at the age of 73. Following the news of her death, everyone from Mariah Carey to Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Go’s to Keith Urban shared how much she inspired and meant to them, not only as a singer/actor but as a human being who went above and beyond to make the world a better place.

While Xanadu gave Newton-John the chance to work with one of the singing/dancing Hollywood greats who inspired her, she certainly went on to solidify her status as a pop icon in her own right. And part of that journey was “Magic,” her fourth No. 1 hit and an enchanting ode to love and artistic creation that set her up for what would later become her biggest hit, the monster smash “Physical.” But as a Forever No. 1, “Magic” remains just that.

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