To Poll Somebody - The Robin Gibb Memorial BEE GEES TRACKS POLL (voting thread) - FINAL DEADLINE IS FRIDAY, JUNE 15, NO FOOLIN'

haha roger daltrey should be careful when accusing others of singing goofily

Hoping to see a lot of love for both Emotion by Samantha Sang and Boys Do Fall in Love by Robin Gibb itt.

first ballot received!

I will submit one in the next day or so

d/ling Sing Slowly Sisters, never heard this before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PLeNdfkoBI

well the sound quality is really shitty, but can't say I'm digging Sing Slowly Sisters. reaaaaaaally maudlin and monotonous.

Shakey, search "The Flag I Flew" and "A Very Special Day" -- I think you might hear the forest thru the trees.

yeah i can't get past the sound quality.

there's no youtube for it, but would like to put in a kind word for "Completely Unoriginal", perhaps their funniest moment

what, funnier than the attempt to use a moog on "Sweet Song of Summer"?

what's funny about that?

This song is awesome.

which one

"Sweet Song of Summer." The middle eastern melismas in that song are off-the-charts crazy.

I've been stockpiling things to say about "Mr. Natural" in the results thread (assuming it places). I came to it late -- but am finding its chorus to be just a masterfully written, arranged and sung.

yeah I like Sweet Song of Summer, it's like their doomy-y prog track

I've been reading the Gibb Songs website the last few days: http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/beegees/index.html

One of the things discussed in some detail is the demos Barry and the boys did for Dionne and Kenny Rogers. Which it turns out I have on a bootleg. Some highlights:

"Islands in the Stream" -- while not exactly the Sam Cooke-like version described by Robin, the chorus on the demo is just stunningly beautiful. Apparently, Kenny was super lazy, hadn't bothered to learn any of the songs and just ended up singing what Barry did on the demo -- but the harmonies on the chorus by Dolly (who was added later, I believe) transforms it from Bee Gees ethereal to something decidedly more country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGx4sBseM-Q

Also great is the demo for "Midsummer Nights": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__sMkNlBplk

still want someone to make this into a doom metal epic. nothing says 1969 like a thirteen minute sea dirge. (??!!)

Never realized this was a longer, unreleased take on this. The Gibb Songs site calls it his "masterpiece." Must hear it!

Posted this to ILM somewhere before, but I think it's worth posting again, and I couldn't find the other thread anyway, this being the Mix magazine Classic Tracks article about the recording of "Stayin' Alive": http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_bee_gees_stayin/index.html

fyi I am love love loving Mr Natural - gonna have it nicely represented in my ballot methinks

2 days to go, a whopping 2 ballots received...

oh shi I forgot -- I will do mine tonight!

2 days to go, a whopping 2 ballots received...

Yikes. I plan to do one, but I've been ABBAing it up the past few days.

Yeah, I really think running this at the same time as the ABBA poll was a bad mistake.

if only Robin had gotten our message about holding on a little longer eh

I'm happy to extend the deadline if people are gonna like actually vote and stuff

wd do

So would I but there's like 40 years of stuff there! So my contribution would be spotty at best.

okay, DEADLINE OFFICIALLY EXTENDED TO JUNE 8th

yay thanks Shakey! <3

Will do this I swear

I have an obligation to drum up support for this.

thanks - I had this week slated for boning up on Fleetwood Mac's obscurities for next week's poll (and maybe ABBA for this week's), and didn't wan't to rely on the mostly-familiar material I already know - and their discography is huge.

But this has the hallmarks of a great tracks poll - a long, storied career, lots of great stuff throughout, several distinct phases, and no consensus whatsoever as to which is the best.

I kind of love all their periods, hard to say which one I like the most

I've been digging into To Whom It May Concern and Life In a Tin Can of late -- their immediately pre-disco era. A lot of great songs on those.

Great solo and ensemble vocals on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH0oaeKLKu8

Really good trade-off vocals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFQi2d1z3Oc

I find myself really drawn to this super ethereal Maurice song -- I'm trying to decide who it sounds like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA0gXxwwxfg

Not sure if any of these will make my ballot -- but it just goes to show how unbelievably deep these guys' catalog is.

You Know It's For You is great - I wanna say there's something almost country-by-way-of-Neil Young about it?

I don't have Life in a Tin Can anymore, don't recall anything particularly standing out on that one.

"Method to My Madness" is on LiaTC -- also, "Come Home Johnny Bride" is a good country-ish Barry tune.

their flirtations with country are kinda scattered across a bunch of albums (starting with Odessa) - would probably make a pretty solid album if you compiled 'em all together

I'll just say with three ballots in (including my own) so far, there is definitely a consensus forming lol

Lol

Re. Life in a Tin Can, "My Life Has Been a Song" is really good -- awesome refrain from Barry. One thing I like about this era is the preponderance of sludgy, mid-tempo ballads that feature little more than Maurice's piano. It kind of affirms for me how much these guys got by purely on melody and emotion -- something I think they returned to in the later stages of their career, as they began writing for other folks.

It's weird to me that this was their lowest point commercially. None of the material is particularly out of step with the times - lush, mellow "easily listening" ballads were huge, and they obviously had their ear to the ground re: R&B and funk stuff too - and it's not like their melodic or compositional gifts lagged at all. I suppose the breaking up/not breaking up shenanigans didn't help matters... Even so, for some reason 2 Years On and LiaTC were the two from that period that I didn't unreservedly love at first blush. I wonder if anyone will be voting for anything off "A Kick In the Head is Worth Eight in the Pants" lol

I love how Robin basically sounds like a Moog synth on the bridge around 1:50) on this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bcd-zmB4vk

such a great song - smooth and mellow at the outset, weirdo ethereal bridge in the middle, then shifts into gospel funk overdrive at the end

Yeah that whole album is great

Yeah, I love how "Throw a Penny" blows right into "Down the Road."

feel like some of their best moments are their most morbid and self-pitying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh1NNAsuF4M

very Spector-esque

2 ballots are so lonely

voted!

2 less lonely ballots in the world etc

Honestly, my ballot has been changing on a daily basis. I keep discovering new songs that are bumping the more obvious ones.

c'mon just two more votes and we'll at least TIE with ABBA

do it peoples!

you should be voting!

how deep is yr love of the Bee Gees, ilxors?

is there a thread of gibb bros (esp barry)-produced stuff that was recorded by other singers?

like this song, which is the shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW0S0-K3xlM

on a similar note

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGx4sBseM-Q

and to close the circle

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

I think this is that thread, it covers the most ground