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

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.

I'll be out of town this weekend, but I'll assemble and cast my ballot early next week!

4 ballots

And so the rush begins...

gonna rep for some deep-60s cuts here

one of their most blatantly Macca/Ray Davies cuts but christ what a melody, just irresistable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sudd9Sv2Bgg

the song that sold my wife on the bros:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFnvk8x0-f8

The first of may came up on my iPod this morning, so gorgeous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4gU-I3w2Uo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29mGd-0-lfE

I continue to be utterly stunned at how deep their catalog is. Does anyone else even come close?

George Clinton

or the Beach Boys maybe...? I dunno.

yeah there aren't any real analogues with comparable multi-decade strings of hits

great opening post

You People Haven't Lived Until You've Blasted The Bee Gees' "Nights On Broadway"

I must have listened to Nights On Broadway 10 times the day Robin died. Such a killer song. One of my alltime top 5 ever.

(added bonus that it was SNL Barry Gibb Talk Show theme)

how many ballots? double digits or bust

we're at a whopping 6 ballots, including my own

:(

Mine is still forthcoming.

I've just submitted an undersized ballot - I figure anything is better than nothing given the poor response so far

4 days to go, get them ballots in

Poor Shakey Mo is going to get an avalanche of 50 ballots on Friday.

Bee Gee Polling Disaster 2012

Don't make poor Robin (in heaven) cry ILX!

apropos of nothing ... 2 Years On is better than I remember it, but it does seem to lack any real standout tracks

Well, other than "Lonely Days" (which, fwiw, won't make my ballot).

I like the title track -- particularly the "Only you/Can see me" part.
I also came to "The 1st Mistake I Made" via a cover version by Phil Seymour of The Dwight Twilley Band for some tribute. For the longest time I couldn't figure out what album it was from because Seymour's version was called "The First Mistake I Ever Made." But I think that's one of Barry's better country ballads.

Weekend listening to the 60s stuff made me fall for this great little pop song of Robin's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfDBdn9Frgc

yeah the harmonies on Indian Gin are great

I'm trying to cram as much listening in before I submit my ballot. Was hoping to unearth some great obscurities but don't have time to check out 1000 songs now so will stick mostly to their own releases and a few well-known songs performed by others (didn't realize there were so many).

This will probably be my #20, because I have a soft spot for wildly misleading first singles that don't even hint at the musical direction the band later takes. This doesn't sound even remotely like the late-60s balladeers that first became popular (at least outside of Australia), much less the '70s disco superstars they would later become...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TdqIyRd51k