Various Artists - Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Soundtrack (1977)

Note: this release was originally purchased as a double LP, later replaced by a CD.

I really don't need to write anything about this album, because you had (or still have) a copy, too. It wasn't bad on 2 LPs, but so much better on CD. Heard on CD as over 70 minutes of music, this disc comes off like an idealized commercial-free radio set of late-'70s dance music.

Rolling Stone, March 23, 1978, p. 64

Whatever, Rolling Stone. It's hard to argue with these numbers:

• 40+ million - copies sold worldwide.
• 120 - weeks on the Billboard album chart (until March 1980).
• 57 - spot on VH1's 2003 list of greatest albums of all time.
• 163 - spot on Rolling Stone magazine's 2020 list of 500 greatest albums of all time.
• 1 - Grammy Award for Album of the Year (1979)
• 10:51 - length of the epic Disco Inferno by The Trammps
• 17 - tracks
• 6 - Billboard #1 pop hits

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard Top 200: #1 (24 straight weeks, Jan 21-July 1, 1978)
• Billboard R&B: #1 (5 consecutive weeks, February 18 - March 18, 1978)
• CashBox: #1 (25 consecutive weeks, January 21 - July 8, 1978)

Tracks: God help me, I love disco music. I can't skip any of these tracks, not even the cheesy Fifth Of Beethoven or the processed David Shire instrumentals. If I had to pick a favorite track, it would be If I Can't Have You by Yvonne Elliman, which might be my all-time favorite disco tune.

Single	Artist	Hot 100	R&B	Dance	AC
Jive Talkin'	Bee Gees	1			9
A Fifth of Beethoven	Walter Murphy	1	10		13
You Should Be Dancing	Bee Gees	1	4	1	25
Open Sesame	Kool & The Gang	55	6	13
How Deep is Your Love	Bee Gees	1			1
Night Fever	Bee Gees	1	8		19
If I Can't Have You	Yvonne Elliman	1			9
Stayin' Alive/Night Fever/More Than a Woman	Bee Gees			3
Stayin' Alive	Bee Gees	1	4		28
Disco Inferno	The Trammps	11	9	1
More Than a Woman	Tavares	32	36
Boogie Shoes	KC & The Sunshine Band	35	29

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Seeing the movie at the Texas movie theater in downtown BC (even though I had the soundtrack before I saw the movie). Now when I watch the movie, I notice its dark subject matter of bigotry, rape, and death. When I was 12 years old, I didn't pay attention to any of that. To me, it was all about the music and the dancing. That may be the last movie I ever saw in a single screen movie house.

The song Disco Inferno, for some reason, reminds me of a jr. high tennis tournament at BCHS.