MovieChat Forums > Staying Alive (1983) Discussion > Very Underrated Soundtrack.

Very Underrated Soundtrack.


Staying Alive soundtrack is really great, very underrated imo because it was always compared to the iconic Saturday Night Fever soundtrack which is probably the best selling soundtrack in history. My two favorite Bee Gees songs from it are, I love You To Much, and Somebody Belonging to Someone. Frank Stallone really did some awesome work on it and only got the chance because his brother needed a last second replacement to fill in some music. Frank Stallone won a Grammy for, Far From Over, I think he had a total of five songs on it.

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I agree. I can play it from start to finish and not skip a song.

The Bee Gees could never top the SNF songs but here they still put in some great songs.

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I agree, but there were a few problems here. First, it was impossible to top SNF, as you noted. But also, despite writing consistently good and new songs for this soundtrack, there isn't any one song that stands out as a potentially big, catchy, dance hit.

When it came to editing the movie, for whatever the reason, likely because the story was a mess, Stallone, (and/or producers Bill Oakes and Robert Stigwood, editors Peter E. Berger, Mark Warner and Don Zimmerman, music supervisor and editor Nancy Fogarty and Russ Reagan), collectively, seperately, who knows, buried too many of the Bee Gees songs in the mix, or had them appear too briefly. Why this happened, has never been fully revealed. Though it is known one song by them, River of Souls never made it into the film at all. All this upset the BeeGees a bit, and plenty fans, who not only thought disco died a pre-mature death, but were happy with this new material not trying to just imitate their sound of the late 70's, and recognized the quality of the songwriting. The BeeGees also later admitted they tried their best to write good songs, but right from the get-go were not really interested, or impressed with the film.

The film also was supposed to be an opportunity of Sly's brother Frank to appear in it and sing a song. Frank also wrote or co-wrote a few more songs, but those were also buried in the mix, with one very good hit, Far From Over, prominently featured in the film.

All in all, it probably didn't matter who wrote songs for the film, the movie wasn't that connected to the soundtrack.

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