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Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine, about the hits from

coast to coast.

I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic,

and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series? On today's show, four decades ago,

in September 1978, Billboard's album chart was awash in movie soundtracks. In fact, there were

three in the charts top ten at the same time,

each celebrating a different decade of pop. More improbably than these three soundtracks riding

the top ten together, all three showcase the members of one group as artists, songwriters, and even, in one

case, movie stars, the Bee Gees. On the Greece soundtrack, the title song and biggest hit,

right at the start of the movie as the opening credits roll. It was written by the Bee Gehs Barry Gibb and sung by

former four seasons vocalist Frankie Valley, the number one smash, Greece. The Grease is the word. It's

got to prove. It's got a meaning. The BGs were also in front of the camera that summer as members of the titular, imaginary, cinematic pop group, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

And finally hearts come back, we hope you and enjoy the show.

And finally, of course, the Bee Gees were all over Saturday Night Fever, accounting for more than a half dozen tracks and four new number one songs, all of which they either wrote or recorded.

If you are the sort of music fan who thinks about the BGs at all, this imperial moment

in the late 70s is probably what you think of

first. It's certainly the period of the Gibbs career that popular culture has most focused

upon, whether it's to celebrate the Bee Gees or to lampoon them. Just last year in 2017, the Grammy Awards went the celebratory route,

devoting an entire televised Bee Gees tribute exclusively to the group's disco peak.

Nothing you're brother, or left for your money, we're staying in a lot, we're staying in a lot.

We were shooting and everybody shaking and we're staying in the night,

...