Xanadu (Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra song)


"Xanadu" is the title song from the soundtrack to the 1980 film Xanadu. The song is performed by English-born Australian singer Olivia Newton-John and English rock band Electric Light Orchestra. Newton-John sings the primary vocals, with ELO lead singer and the song's writer Jeff Lynne adding parenthetic vocals in the style of their other songs on the Xanadu soundtrack, along with ELO providing the instrumentation. It is Lynne's favourite song of all that he has written.
"Xanadu" reached number one in several countries and was the band's only UK number-one single, when it peaked there for two weeks in July 1980. It was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry. It also peaked at number eight on the US Billboard Hot 100.
The music video also appears on the Friends episode "The One Where Rachel and Ross... You Know".

Personnel

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Olivia featuring Paula version

In late 1995, two Australian dance performers released versions of the song. Sydney singer Olivia Featuring Paula released a dance version first, followed by Kirsty K.. Both versions charted on the ARIA Singles and Dance Charts in the first half of 1996.

Chart performance (Olivia featuring Paula version)

Kirsty K. version

Chart performance (Kirsty K. version)

New Electric Light Orchestra version

In 2000, ELO's Jeff Lynne re-recorded the song, with his own vocals, for the box set Flashback and the compilation. Though it was billed as an ELO selection, the song was recorded by Lynne with Marc Mann on keyboards, but with no input from his former bandmates.

Sharleen Spiteri version

In 2009, Scottish singer-songwriter Sharleen Spiteri recorded the song for a second studio album titled The Movie Songbook which was released on March 1, 2010 worldwide. Xanadu was released as the lead single from the album in February 2010 and has so far made the BBC Radio 2 C-List.

Chart performance

Other cover versions

recorded the song in Swedish with lyrics by Ingela "Pling" Forsman, and released it as a single in 1980. Her version chartered at Svensktoppen for 10 weeks between October 26-December 21, 1980. 1980 also saw the release of Swedish language-recordings by Ingmar Nordströms, Flamingokvintetten and Wizex.
British indie artist Dev Hynes, under his alias Lightspeed Champion, did his own rendition of "Xanadu" as a B-side to his single "Tell Me What It's Worth".
Juliana Hatfield covered the song on her album Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John.
Menudo also covered the song in Spanish; sung by Miguel Cancel, it became a major hit across Latin America.