Various – Saturday Night Fever (The Original Movie Sound Track)

Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track, released in November 1977 by RSO, is a landmark compilation that helped bring disco’s rhythms into mainstream consciousness. Anchored by the Bee Gees’ contributions—“Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep Is Your Love,” “Night Fever,” and “More Than a Woman”—the album also includes performances by Yvonne Elliman, the Trammps, Kool & the Gang, and Walter Murphy’s disco-classical reimagining of Beethoven’s Fifth. With its blend of pop, soul, dance, and novelty tracks, the soundtrack doubles as both a hit sampler and a cultural statement. Over decades, its commercial dominance and ubiquity have cemented it as one of the era’s defining documents.

More than merely a backing to the film, the soundtrack shaped disco’s perceived landscape and popular reverence. It remained atop the U.S. charts for 24 straight weeks and eventually reached shipments of over 16× platinum—making it one of the best-selling soundtrack albums in history. Critics and historians now regard it as a key touchstone in disco’s rise and commercial assimilation, recognized for both its artistic strengths and its emblematic value in 1970s pop culture.

Reviews

“Disco’s most popular document was, at the time of its release, also one of its least representative: Saturday Night Fever is disco for straight, white males.” – Pitchfork

“The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack might very well epitomize the whole feeling of disco … the album features a much broader arrangement, by many different artists, and that is one of its strengths.” – Sputnikmusic

“The MoFi is an excellent and well-needed remastering … you get 17 songs … like ‘Stayin’ Alive,’ ‘Night Fever,’ and ‘Jive Talkin’ by the Bee Gees; ‘Disco Inferno’ by the Trammps; and even a disco-classical redo called ‘A Fifth of Beethoven’.” – SoundStage!