Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu

Not just the ultimate Xanadu collection. No way, we leave that to other, poorer blogs. We've got the Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu collection. Two disks worth of covers of songs and documentary snippets relating to a film I've never seen. But since the wiki entry on it says that it was the inspiration for "the Golden Raspberry Awards to memorialize the worst films of the year", then maybe I should see it. Apparently there's a sizeable cult for this 1980 "romantic musical fantasy film" - these 2 disks are boiled down from a 20-disk fan collection.
 
Tho it's heavy on the electro-disco and ELO outtakes/rarities, there is still a variety of sounds here. Particular faves: Klaus Wunderlich's disco organ instrumental (in my world, '70s discos don't have DJs spinning the BeeGees, they have old guys playing the organ); what sounds like an inept school or amateur theater cast (disk 2, track 4); a Japanese pop-punk girl band called Tiger Shovel Nose; Hemes House Band (and I usually hate house music); and a "bossa-nova toy pop" version of the title song. Tho I suspect I'd like a bossa-nova toy pop version of anything. Brazilian band La Sound even covered the entire soundtrack (?!), tho we get just one song from it here (disk 1 track 16), a nifty lounge finger-snapper. 

This plethora of Xanadu-nocity comes to us courtesy of Don-O, the man behind the Hour of Crap podcast, the Twilight World 'zine, and many other useful pursuits. This was originally a project of his Xanadu fan site, in which he whittled down the collection of Robert Porter, who ran a Jeff Lynne fan site. Lynn is of course the man behind the Electric Light Orchestra, who provided much of the music for "Xanadu."

Didn't think I would like this much, but the unrelenting, irresistible perkiness of the damn thing wore down my resistance, and I was happily bopping around to all this nonsense. Drive yourself and everyone around you crazy with lots and lots of versions of an Olivia Newton-John disco showtune! "A place where nobody dared to go":

Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu disk 1

Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu disk 2

Thanks to Don and the Xanadu Preservation Society.