DON'T FORGET TO REMEMBER: The Official ILM Track-By-Track BEE GEES 1968-1981 Listening Thread

it is, we'll get to that!

Track No. 143: You Stepped Into My Life ("Children of the World", 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Zk7TJ7f3w

When the Gibbs hit on a formula, they sure knew how to run with it. Barry's falsetto, chicken-scratch guitars, a wash of strings and fender rhodes, an airtight rhythm section, and in this case a synth sound I primarily associate with P-Funk and Bernie Worrell. Even without Mardin behind the boards, they've finely tuned their Miami sound machine so that everything sparkles and the groove never lets up. Melodically eh this is a little boring, Blue Weaver's synth line is probably the most memorable thing about it. Maurice again is relegated to bass and if Robin is anywhere on this track it's indetectable. (I wouldn't be surprised if Robin's biggest contribution to this album was suggesting they all dress as aviators for the cover). That being said, even with Barry firmly in the lead, it's worth noting that song credits on their disco era albums are all almost uniformly split between the three brothers, possibly an act of solidarity on Barry's part that was both smart and generous.

Track No. 144: Love So Right ("Children of the World", 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiV7VgC4UUE

The second single from the album, showcasing their softer side. A misty-eyed, proto-yacht rock Delfonics homage, with Barry's falsetto nestled in a bed of strings, acoustic guitar, fender rhodes, and synthesizer. The rhythm section deploys a light touch, Maurice and Robin chime in on the refrain, and the lyrics are a bunch of generic cliches. I like that he reins the falsetto in a bit for this gentler material, but when he goes into the shrieking ad libs at the end it feels a little out of place - that's better suited for the dancefloor fillers. Best thing about this song is the chorus, which is definitely catchy, but feels like it wears out its welcome by the end.

Oops, missed the last few tracks. I never thought I liked this album much but I like all the tracks so far - "You Should Be Dancing", goes without saying.

Track No. 145: Lovers ("Children of the World", 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XopiApTvlIg

Listen to that glossy synth tone, damn. The hi-hats, the kick drum,and a palm-muted chicka-chicka wah-wah guitar pattern that is practically a reggae/one-drop rhythm (in places, anyway) keep the groove steady while a wah-wah bass, synths, and a bunch of silly voices dart in and out in polyrhythmic fashion. The instrumentation is actually fairly sparse compared to other tracks, and feels like a close cousin to "Jive Talkin'". What is different here is the overall sound, which is much more rubbery and synthetic than on "Main Course", and the vocal arrangement. I'm not sure if there was a specific inspiration here but it sounds like they were trying to replicate the multi-part techniques of various R&B singing groups that usually had 5 or 6 vocalists with distinct tones/ranges (Temptations, P-Funk) where you'd have guys trading lines. So instead instead of singing thick harmonies they're voices are split - low growly Barry here, Robin (clearly showing that hey, he can do that falsetto thing too!) there, Maurice joining in for the chorus. Robin's voice in particular sounds great when it jumps out, he has a rounder tone that makes his falsetto less shrill than Barry's. The overall effect is sorta goofy, but I love it.

honestly this might be my favorite track on this album so far

Track No. 146: Can't Keep a Good Man Down("Children of the World", 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtYeYSlV87A

Things are so airtight and buffed-to-perfection now. The sound is exceptionally dry (no reverb anywhere!) and cleanly separated, every element - including the Gibbs' voices - isolated with a shiny, plastic clarity. Wah-wah guitars and fender rhodes are thrown up against a choppy horn line and staccato organ and the by now familiar disco groove. The only incongruous element here is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Robin's voice, which really leaps out when he hits his a capella break. Melodically, lyrically, and harmonically there's not a ton going on here, it's very much groove oriented, with various riffs cycling in and out, but the hook in the chorus is not particularly remarkable. Serviceable filler.

Track No. 146: Boogie Child ("Children of the World", 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyqmwoCWHYs

Back to the hits, with the third single from the album which peaked at #12. I have to say, the opening bars of this always put me in mind of Nilsson's (abetted by Lennon) "All My Life", although it quickly goes different places. The staccato horn lines are great, very Sly & the Family Stone, as are the "when you're groovin/like you really know" breakdowns. The vocals are again fragmented and split into different lines, working in a call-and-response fashion over the clavichord and wah-wah guitars. And then the song really kind of goes some weird places when the strings come in, running through a series of turnarounds and ascending melody lines until it hits that ghostly drop-off. Barry can't resist throwing in the shrieks at the end but he doesn't really overdo it, thankfully. Lyrically it's a bunch of nonsense about boogieing, which is exactly what the song calls for. I feel like Dr. Teeth and the Muppets could've covered this song.

Track No. 147: Love Me ("Children of the World", 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj92dFJ2euE

Robin takes another lead vocal, delivering a mid-tempo ballad that wouldn't have been out of place on "Mr. Natural". Robin's vibrato carries the minor key verses, and is joined by Barry and Maurice when the choruses shift into major, delivering a fairly memorable, pleading hook. Barry butts in with his falsetto for the bridge, since they can't let a song go by on this album without featuring *that*, now could they? Robin responds with some fairly awkward vocal ad-libs of his own. The instrumentation is consistent with the rest of the album, with wah wahs and synths dominating

Been away, so missed most of this album. Will try to catch up at some point.

the Bee Gees stop for no man!

https://www.betootaadvocate.com/humans-of-betoota/band-of-friends-use-up-entire-footpath-walking-three-abreast-like-theyre-the-fucking-bee-gees/

I hadn't really noticed "Lovers" before but it's bonkers! Is it just me or is there some time signature fuckery going on?

There’s some bars where they drop beats, yeah

Track No. 148: Subway ("Children of the World", 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOPWwnVeKy0

Right out of the gate there are several things in the introductory chorus that do not bode well for this song: the synth stacked-strings sound, the saxophone wailing, and breathy Barry rhapsodizing about the subway. All of those elements get stripped out for the verses where Barry switches to falsetto, which works a bit better. But Blue Weaver's wandering synth part really gets on my nerves, and Barry can't think of anything better to do than shriek a bunch of wordless ad-libs. This song just does not work.

Track No. 149: The Way it Was ("Children of the World", 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W4cgutr4cA

Completely switching gears, the band delivers this throwback piano ballad with Barry in full-on reflective lovelorn mode. Still managing to work that falsetto in there as the song crescendos at the end of each verse, things still feel pretty perfunctory and tossed off. The saxophone at the end threatens to really kick the song into overblown yacht rock territory, but somehow just mercifully peters out instead. Robin and Maurice do not appear to be on the track at all, seems like this is mostly just Barry filling space.

I don't think these last two songs are that terrible, but I agree they're not especially interesting - mind you, that sax and ending on "The Way It Was" are bad bad bad. As I said before I've never rated this album much in the past but it's pretty easy on the ears.

Yeah, I'm not that familiar with the order of their discography, but it feels like we're approaching peak Bee Gees here.

Track No. 150: Children of the World ("Children of the World", 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NbR-Xr5Xvs

The fourth and final single, the title track opens with a surprising bit of a capella harmonizing, capped off with a ridiculous "there ain't no easy way!" falsetto flourish from Barry before segueing seamlessly into a thick sine-wave synth and acoustic guitar-led groove. Great bubbling synth bass on this too. Lacking the horns and strings and layers of percussion of other, more cluttered groove-heavy songs on the album, the relatively spare arrangement here feels open and airy. After a synth-heavy instrumental breakdown, the boys come back for an a capella key change, a third verse, and then ends on yet another a capella break that is clearly meant to make the final "keeps us all anticipating" line literal. Closes this very Barry-heavy album with a track that spotlights the brothers' harmonies in a sweet way.

Track No. 151: Stayin' Alive ("Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_izvAbhExY

What a monster. Innovative, unstoppable, and sounding fully formed from the first bar, every piece of the chugging arrangement perfectly sculpted. I consider this article fairly definitive: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-bee-gees-stayin-alive when it comes to how this song works the way it does.

Absolutely airtight, a pop landmark. I'll never tire of it.

Obligatory Simpsons reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfE5rR75mi0

Fascinating article. Never knew about the drop loop:

The drum loop would go on to have quite a career in its own right, serving as the backbone to not only 'Stayin' Alive' and 'More Than A Woman', but also Barbra Streisand's 'Woman In Love'.

“After that? Who knows?”

Track No. 152: How Deep Is Your Love ("Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpqqjU7u5Yc

Initially tagged as one for Yvonne Elliman to do, the boys ended up keeping the song for themselves and then subsequently pushed Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" out of the number one spot for a record 17 weeks. I was trying to figure this song out on guitar last night and it defeated me. At this point Barry's throwing in all kinds of passing suspended 4ths and minor 6ths into his chord changes and has graduated to a whole new level of melodic complexity. Some of this is definitely Blue Weaver's doing, per his anecdote:

"One morning, it was just myself and Barry in the studio. He said, 'Play the most beautiful chord you know', and I just played, what happened was, I'd throw chords at him and he'd say, 'No, not that chord', and I'd keep moving around and he'd say, 'Yeah, that's a nice one' and we'd go from there. Then I'd play another thing - sometimes, I'd be following the melody line that he already had and sometimes I'd most probably lead him somewhere else by doing what I did. I think Robin came in at some point. Albhy also came in at one point and I was playing an inversion of a chord, and he said, 'Oh no, I don't think it should be that inversion, it should be this', and so we changed it to that, but by the time Albhy had come in, the song was sort of there.[

And oh how smooth it is. I don't think the Bee Gees are usually bandied about as yacht rock (maybe because they're not American?) but this disco-period balladry side of them really seems to fit imo: the glassy eyed cooing, the gentle fender rhodes arpeggios, the strings and synths melting together in the background, the restrained patter of the drums. Harmonies on this are also killer although I have a hard time hearing who's doing what, my guess is that's Robin on the higher harmony. Love this song, even if it used as the backdrop for one of the dumbest scenes in the film.

love that description of the songwriting process.

for a band whose lyrics, even at this point, could be, to be charitable about it, strange, this is a drop-dead gorgeous love lyric:

'cause we're living in a world of fools
breaking us down
when they all should let us be
we belong to you and me

the fadeout, on that exact part in a final reprise of the chorus, seems weirdly early.

I love this song. Might be my personal favorite from the disco era.

I was waiting for this one. I finished my PhD in 2000 and had to print and assemble temp copies for marking the night before I was going away, which I finished at 2am. I had the SNF soundtrack in the CD player of my Alfa 33 and when I hit the road to drive home, the six lane highway was wisped in fog and I was the only car on the road for the entire trip. As this song played I kind of left this earth for an astral plane for a minute. Untouchable.

Classic winding melody from Barry. Chord chart for days. Not until the chorus is finished do you even hear one musical phrase repeated. The arrangement practically glows. All around simply stunning.

I think we've officially arrived at peak Bee Gees.

Track No. 153: Night Fever ("Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ihs-vT9T3Q

For a song with "fever" in the title, this is considerably less feverish than some of their other dancefloor jams to my ears. It's propulsive, but the vocal melodies are drifting and ethereal. Maybe that's due to Barry reigning in the falsetto a little bit, alternating between the breathier verse and chorus parts and the more full-throated pre-choruses. Instrumentally, this is all about those syncopated guitar parts that dominate the arrangement; there's even some distorted power chords in the pre-chorus in the back of the mix. As for the rest: once you hear that Stayin' Alive drum loop you kind of can't unhear it, but it sure works. The strings and Blue Weaver's electric piano parts get in some nice, understated counterpoint melodies. Speaking of which:

...'Night Fever' started off because Barry walked in one morning when I was trying to work out something. I always wanted to do a disco version of Theme from A Summer Place by the Percy Faith Orchestra or something - it was a big hit in the Sixties. I was playing that, and Barry said, 'What was that?' and I said, 'Theme from A Summer Place', and Barry said, 'No, it wasn't'. It was new. Barry heard the idea - I was playing it on a string synthesizer and sang the riff over it.

Track No. 154: More Than a Woman ("Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, 1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy0rYUvn7To

Cuz, y'know, a woman's just not *enough* for a Bee Gee, you've got to be MORE than a woman. Condescendingly sexist lyrics aside, this is another marvel of compact writing and glistening production. Oh sure, maybe you're getting sick of that drum loop by now, but check out how the multi-harmony vocal line in the second half of the verse goes through three lines ("and if I lose you now I think I would die...") but then abruptly segues to a solo Barry pre-chorus bit ("oh say you'll always be my baby, we can make it shine..."). It's not hard to imagine Barry singing this an octave lower over a completely different arrangement just a few years earlier, it exemplifies his mastery of melodic construction. Doesn't overstay it's welcome or get overly histrionic either, Blue Weaver's twinkling keys, Barry's chicken-scratch guitar, and the billowing strings just gliding along.

Great as this run of songs has been, it's not hard to guess what's coming next: the band's "New Jersey".

Track No. 154: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" soundtrack, 1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGr2jdCu_Yg

This is depressing

has there ever been a more dramatically wrong-headed career 180

Track No. 155: Getting Better ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" soundtrack, 1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC20A5B75qI

Just... why. Everything about this project is wrong. The Bee Geees *never* covered other people's material once they came to England, they were riding high with a completely different style, they had always resented the Beatles comparisons, they're paired with randos.

Honestly when I started on this project I completely forgot that this thing even fell within the bounds of the survey and now I'm kinda bummed.

That's awful, but notable for two reasons - how slavishly they replicated the original arrangement including the Indian instruments, and the realisation that I love that mantra jackhammer chord so much that I can ignore whatever else is going on.

Frampton's strained yawp is such an awful match for the Gibbs' voices. And the whole arrangement is just thin and lifeless, a pale replica.

tbf to the Bee Gees, they pretty much don't do anything except sing backup for most of these tracks. Which is mind-blowingly insulting in and of itself, as if that's all they were good for.

I blame Stigwood and George Martin more for this abomination than the Bee Gees tbh. Never actually seen the film, of course.

I watched it fairly recently (tbf my wife insisted) and it is bad.

Track No. 156: I Want You (She's So Heavy) ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" soundtrack, 1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnLhs5VFCNw

I can't even

I mean I guess they do okay with the harmonies at the end but this is a total trainwreck of an arrangement. Donald Pleasance ffs.

I had never heard this before and what the everloving fuck lol

lmao at the overqualified bass playing

and yes the harmonies at the end + the white noise assisted ending are kinda great. this could have been salvaged!

Track No. 157: She's Leaving Home ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" soundtrack, 1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfYWSJK2d-s

well okay at least the vocoder effect here is kinda interesting. Of course, it's completely ruined once the other two (Jay MacIntosh and John Wheeler? who the fuck are these losers?), non-Bee Gee singers come in. Honestly, the song is tailor-made for Robin so once he comes in it's like "ahhhhh, of course!" But again, this is totally ruined just a couple bars later.

really I just want to get these out of the way so let's keep going, shall we?

Track No. 158: Oh! Darling ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" soundtrack, 1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xD249ijYE0

Probably the best track on this entire abortion of an album, with Robin getting a lead spot on a song that's pretty well suited for him. The arrangement is still thin and generally cheesy, but you do get the sense of how they might have pulled off a superior Bee Gee-ized version of this in their early 70s period. The lead electric guitar (is that Frampton? who cares) is pretty bad, and the orchestral is weak as fuck but at least there's no one else stepping on Robin's vocal.

(I guess I should clarify that it's the best BEE GEES track on this album, obviously Aerosmith's rendition of "Come Together" is tight)

Yes, "Oh Darling" is a boring song at the best of times but it's the only one of these worth listening to - and that's entirely down to Robin's vocal.

Track No. 159: Rise to Stardom Suite ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" soundtrack, 1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcVN3QVWi5M

This ill-advised cocaine-encrusted arrangement demonstrates that, all other garbage ideas aside, you could at least rely on the Gibbs to sing well. The congas and phased guitars and Peter Frampton and the limp rhythm section all sound like utter crap but somewhere in all that glop you can still hear a glimmer of what the brothers were best at. Sad!