Bee Gees: Classic or Dud

However, their 70's output is pretty awesome, especially the Saturday Night Fever album.

They should have retired or disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle afterwards.

I do hope that The Solinger takes the fourth bee gee title seriously and starts going to tanning booths and getting a beard. Maybe then he'd be cool. Somehow I doubt it though.

But come to think of it, the Bee Gees looked cool. Bonny Prince Billy looks better furry. So why not? My hostility towards them is fading.

actually, there were four bee gees at one point, one glance at their first best of cover will tell you that much. who he was is a question that remains unanswered for me. the brothers gibb are hanging out and then there's this other guy, like father gibb paid him to be in the band so the guys would have friends who weren't family members.

as for blue-eyed soul, yeah, hall & oates, bowie (on young americans and elsewhere), the righteous brothers, the rascals, rundgren, DUSTY!, van the man (on moondance, at least), the box tops, mitch ryder, the soul survivors, the average white band, etc.

Did you really think I was going to say anything else?

*gags uncermoneously*

*leaves room to put on GOOD music, not this Bee Gees rubbish*

Sums it up nicely.

and i froze, i really had no answer for him. that is until now! mark, you singlehandedly redeem all of pitchfork. surely, the bee gees aren't greater than abba -- hardly a crime! -- even though they have more great songs. abba's best songs are better than the bee gee's best, that's all. however, if you take "world" off of the first best- of and replace it with "melody fair," you've got an album that'll give gold a run for its money.

what's funny is how it all used to be, "many are quick to judge the bee gees based on their disco work, but few are aware of the classic pop they churned out in the 60s." but now it's "that 60s stuff really isn't my thing, but the saturday night fever soundtrack is great!"

And, alas, you and Mark are both wrong in my eyes, because you are making the wrong claims. You don't want the songs, you want the image, the beards, tans and gold medallions, as Nicole indicated. Admit you are both Lotharios.

If I could rescue that song from the disco hell that is the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, I'd be very, very, very, very happy. Two, twice, two times.

So, Fred, you're saying that someone with interest in the Gibb's frilly baroque pop period should start with Odessa?

Classic Bee Gees singles: "Jive Talkin'", "You Should Be Dancing", "Stayin' Alive", "Tragedy". "Night Fever" just isn't strong enough, "Spirits (Having Flown)" is just too twee, all the singles from 1987 onwards are execrable AOR.

robin, i have to admit that i'm a sucker for "first of may," especially in the context of odessa where it's theme of young love lost forever is amplified to the nth degree. and "night fever" is FABULOUS, the string arranging is brilliant and it's so well composed (with three distinct parts).

"First of May" is such a sad whinge for Innocence Lost, though ...

(Geoff, you're not actually hinting you're a Bee Gee by Blood, are you?)

Wait, I had a question... *rummages around in bag* Should I buy albums or just stick with singles comps?

My pals and I made the trek to Memphis to interview Alex Chilton once, back before he was really famous, and he was living with his mom down there and had no money. We're sitting in this biker bar and he goes off about Gibb's "Robin's Reign," very amusing:

"I mean, I like everything, you know, but then again what I would do would be something different. But Robin Gibb’s solo album, this is before the Bee Gees went disco, he had quit the group, he though he was too great to be in it. I didn’t find it until 1977. I was in New York. I was going through this record store and I always kind of liked Robin Gibb the way he’d stand there like Bette Davis (puts finger in cheek). You know, I thought his songs were the best songs they had done and I saw this album and had to buy it and took it home and it was really great."

Interesting about Chilton — Robin's stuff is fantastic. Say what you will, but nobody sounds like him, and Sing Slowly Sisters is really quite a remarkable example of 60's orchestral pop at its most expansive.

As for their disco-era stuff, specially their "Saturday Night Fever" contributions: Classic. But I'm reminded of an accurate comment Matty made recently on the "Supertramp's Breakfast In America: C or D? thread. An unflattering comparison was made between both groups and their over-reliance on "mewling" falsetto lead vocals. A complaint I can totally relate to, despite my giving both groups "classic" status.

I guess it's similar in approach to a George Clinton song about The Funk.

Most of all we need The Grease.

https://theaudiophileman.com/true-falsetto-talking-frankie-valli/

Intriguingly, however, Valli generally only uses the falsetto when singing with the Four Seasons. For most of his solo hits, it’s nowhere to be found, “Falsetto is a great tool to have, if it’s not overdone.”

Valli was going all in on disco at that point, he also recorded the first version of "Native New Yorker" at about that time

He was also having some kind of hearing problems at the time, which is one of the reasons the drummer in the (new) Four Seasons was singing so many of the their material - including their singles.

Here we are:

Valli began suffering from otosclerosis in 1967, forcing him to "sing from memory" in the latter part of the 1970s. Surgery performed by Los Angeles ear specialist Victor Goodhill restored most of his hearing by 1980.

“Falsetto is a great tool to have, if it’s not overdone.”_

Is that a quote from The Sopranos?

Goodfellas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPYDZsXBvw

and that continued on into the '80s. i had no idea that they wrote islands in the stream. which means two members of the fugees had solo tracks that interpolated songs written by the gibbs bros.

wow, that's great, thanks. ethereal, yeah. would have slotted in beautifully next to late yacht stuff, and also "Cruisin'." hard for me to not hear it as a duet after all these years with Dolly and Kenny though!

i note a small instrumental lift from "S.O.S." (the "when you're gone" part) about 2/3 of the way through...

My favorite Gibb brothers tune written for another artist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KBfkDaOxEk

Which I had forgotten about until the doc, and then the second I heard the second of it included in the movie I started humming along.

Another great Barry demo of that one, tho I think I still prefer the final version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPnbs3YHkXg

This is another one he did for the Kenny Rogers album he wrote, I love the chorus on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiCnUqjAueY

saw two Bee Gees threads bumped back to back and was afraid Barry died. phew.

The doc should have been a series, like the Grateful Dead one on Amazon. Also, a lot of the vintage interview clips, etc, seemed to have been sped up, perhaps to fit enough material in the timeframe?

Maybe they were just changing the pitch to make it sound more like they were speaking in falsetto.

so the Barry Gibb talkshow was real?

Barry’s new country duets album Greenfields is great, have been listening to it a lot

Barry sounds great and Little Big Town guesting for "How Deep Is Your Love" is every bit as smooth as one would hope.

if they do more of these I would KILL for a countryfied "Mr. Natural"

yeah agree!

i could listen to Butterfly on repeat, it sounds so good, the way his voice blends w Gillian Welch is lovely

and the Keith Urban opener, Got To Get A Message To You really knocked my socks off

the one w/ miranda is great... sounded like something that could've been on one of her records

it took me a couple of listens to get into that one - it was weird hearing it slowed down like that, i wasnt sure if i liked it! but i agree now that they really nailed it

miranda manages the impossible, making "Jive Talkin" sound like it's about something

otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHa6vYq6Nyk

Am I unwise
To open up your eyes

Indeed. Though that line about needing someone older has always irritated me somewhat.

I used to sing that song to my kid when she was tiny at bedtime, though I obviously changed that whole problematic chunk of lyric. Still one of my favourite Bee Gees jams though.

You need a boulder?

You look like a soldier?

You need someone’s folder?

What did you sing?

I'm trying to remember the fudge. I think I may have just repeated "you need someone's shoulder" or "someone to hold yer"... She was only 3 then and not so demanding an audience, I totally would not get away with it now.

Robin and Maurice's birthday yesterday.

Anyone picked up the Bob Stanley book?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/02/how-the-bee-gees-ruled-late-70s-pop

Considered it.

Could only be better than The Bee Gees: The Biography by David Meyer which I mention above.

In 1978, they wrote Too Much Heaven, Tragedy and Shadow Dancin’ during a day off on the set of Sgt Pepper – probably an afternoon off, in fact, as all three songs, all future No 1s, were wrapped in about two hours.

...and "Lonely Days" and "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" in another (earlier) single-day session.

Very much want to read Bob's book, can't imagine it won't be brilliant

Have read it and can confirm it is brilliant.

Big profile of Barry here, gift link

https://wapo.st/3SWRaFm

The brothers’ initial success in the United Kingdom was stunning, defying probability and logic, worthy of a biopic. One is in the works with Graham King, who produced “Bohemian Rhapsody” about the band Queen. Gibb wrote a song for the movie, his first in years, while penning a memoir.

Who should play young Barry? Gibb said, “I don’t know but he better be pretty.”

barry otm lol

Very much enjoyed Bob Stanley's book from the summer, though it was light on original research.

will they ever release the maurice and barry post-breakup solo albums? cmon!

Never heard the Maurice one but I've heard most, if not all, of the Barry one and it's no lost classic.

yeah i'm not super aware of what constitutes a solo recording versus just a beegees joint where its just one brother running the whole thing

for barry i was thinking of stuff like this which seems very solo album-y but maybe not

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHu-mHFD7Kw