134. Juliana Hatfield Discusses Xanadu (soundtrack)

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Indie rock icon Juliana Hatfield pays YMAAA a visit to talk about the soundtrack album for the 1980 musical motion picture, Xanadu, which features Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra. Juliana talks about being a fan of both artists growing up, her Olivia Newton-John covers album and her upcoming ELO covers album and the difficulties involved in covering other artists’ songs in general.

Juliana made a reference to the How Did This Get Made? podcast. If you want to check it out, you can find it here: https://www.earwolf.com/show/how-did-this-get-made/

Al mentioned an interview with Fee Waybill that he had read in which he discusses The Tubes’ involvement in Xanadu. Here’s the link: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/the-tubes-fee-waybill-recalls-bonkers-xanadu-scene-214128554.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

Here are links to the videos for “Dancin’” that Al mentioned.

Clip of the scene from Xanadu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts9GdyGD5e4

Olivia Newton-John and Tubes video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WckwVPVnLyM

Juliana is on Instagram at @julianahatfield.

Also, check out her website, https://www.julianahatfield.com/…

…and her Substack: https://julianahatfield.substack.com/.

Al is on Twitter/X at @almelchiorBB and on Bluesky at @almelchior.bsky.social. This show has accounts on Twitter/X, Threads and Instagram at @youmealbum. Be sure to follow @youmealbum to find out in advance about upcoming guests and featured albums for this podcast.

Subscribe for free to You, Me and An Album: The Newsletter and participate in weekly chats about this podcast’s featured albums! https://youmealbum.substack.com/

1:19 Juliana joins the show

1:36 Juliana’s album choice is the perfect one for her

2:34 Juliana chose the Xanadu soundtrack for a variety of reasons

6:02 John Farrar’s songwriting was important to this album

8:29 Juliana faced some challenges when trying to cover “Suddenly”

14:57 Why didn’t Juliana include a cover of “I’m Alive” on her new ELO covers album?

17:59 Juliana didn’t become familiar with ELO’s deeper cuts until recently

23:18 Al was fascinated by “Dancin’”

30:10 Gene Kelly makes an appearance on the soundtrack

31:16 Juliana didn’t care about Xanadu being perceived as uncool

33:31 Al talks about what he likes about Juliana’s cover of “Magic”

35:50 Juliana and Al get into a discussion of Weezer’s covers

38:22 Juliana explains why she wanted to make an ELO covers album

41:25 Artists borrowing from other artists doesn’t bother Juliana

46:41 Juliana learned a lesson from covering “Don’t Bring Me Down”

50:27 Covering ELO had its own specific challenges

54:26 Did Juliana intend to record a series of covers albums?

Outro is from “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head” by Juliana Hatfield.

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