BCB 130 - The Bee Gees

[Phenomenal Cat]

1st - It was their 1st album. They tried.

Horizontal - It has "Massachusettes", a popular song.

Idea - An uneven collection. They sound good.

Odessa - A double-album. Well-accepted.

Cucumber Castle - An album without Robin. Some were disappointed.

Two Years On - Robin came back.

Trafalgar - Their longest album.

Life in a Tin Can - Their shortest album.

To Whom It May Concern - Their least-heard album

Mr. Natural - They were seeking a sound.

Main Course - They found their sound and did it best on this one. Thus, a masterpiece.

[Quaco]

Many do consider Main Course their masterpiece. Maybe it's their Revolver, where they changed convincingly but without some amount of decadence that followed (or something).

[toomanyhatz]

You left out:

Saturday Night Fever - They took over the world!

[Phenomenal Cat]

Many do consider Main Course their masterpiece. Maybe it's their Revolver, where they changed convincingly but without some amount of decadence that followed (or something).

So - why is it a masterpiece?

[Quaco]

Good question. I don't know it very well.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

It's not. Their first album is.

[Phenomenal Cat]

It's not. Their first album is.

Because it's good?

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Both are good. The first is otherworldly.

[Charlie O.]

A "new" Robin album, out in late September...

[Snarfyguy]

I hadn't ever even seen an Australian album cover by The Bee Gees (I have the Brilliant at Birth 2-CD set). I may have to check these out.

The teeth... the teeth!

I listened to this several times over the weekend. Barry was really on a tear in the early days, composing songs in every style he could think of, it seems. A lot of it's really derivative and naive, but still enjoyable somehow.

Check out their "protest song" - right out of the Barry McGuire playbook. He even rhymes "attitudes" with "platitudes!"



Did any other "beat combo" put out a debut consisting of all original songs in 1965? That's quite audacious.

[Bent Fabric]

The more I think about it, the more I think of Saturday Night Fever as "their Da Capo." Approximately a side's worth of amazing new original compositions ("Stayin' Alive", "Night Fever", "How Deep Is Your Love", "More Than A Woman"...Yvonne Elliman's version of "If I Can't Have You"), followed by...well, I tend to think of the likes of "Disco Inferno", "Night On Disco Mountain", "Calypso Breakdown" etc. as "Revelation".

But...yeah, maybe my favorite 20 minutes of Bee Gees music ever, somehow padded to double album length. Keeping the top shelf shit on Side A was a real courtesy to the listener.

[Guy E]

Here's a secondhand story that I'll keep anonymous. I guess The Bee Gees really were a weird group.

Back when I worked at Spec's in South Beach Barry Gibb lived in Miami and would occasionally come into the store. Whenever there was a new Bee Gees title, whether it was a compilation, reissue or solo album, he would politely ask us to remove all the other Bee Gees titles in the group's section so the customers would only find the new title. Of course, we would have to turn him down for the obvious reasons. As a retailer, we hoped that the customer would buy the new title and then maybe pick up an older title while they're in the section. This was explained to Barry several times, to the point where the store manager would go hide when she saw him come in.

Barry's solution to this problem was to BUY all the other Bee Gees stock so the store would be out of everything except the new title.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Here's a secondhand story that I'll keep anonymous. I guess The Bee Gees really were a weird group.

Back when I worked at Spec's in South Beach Barry Gibb lived in Miami and would occasionally come into the store. Whenever there was a new Bee Gees title, whether it was a compilation, reissue or solo album, he would politely ask us to remove all the other Bee Gees titles in the group's section so the customers would only find the new title. Of course, we would have to turn him down for the obvious reasons. As a retailer, we hoped that the customer would buy the new title and then maybe pick up an older title while they're in the section. This was explained to Barry several times, to the point where the store manager would go hide when she saw him come in.

Barry's solution to this problem was to BUY all the other Bee Gees stock so the store would be out of everything except the new title.

I AM BARRY FUCKING GIBB, GODDAMMIT!

[clive gash]

That Bee Gees/Deep Purple connection in full









...and some time later



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marbles_(duo)

[Quaco]

Odessa - A double-album. Well-accepted.

It's taken me some time to come to terms with Odessa. The opening title track is completely unlike anything else on the album. It sets you up for an expansive and wondrous album ... but the rest of the songs are kind of this acoustic songwriting seminar. Much to get from it, but it's not the album it seems like.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Odessa - A double-album. Well-accepted.

It's taken me some time to come to terms with Odessa. The opening title track is completely unlike anything else on the album. It sets you up for an expansive and wondrous album ... but the rest of the songs are kind of this acoustic songwriting seminar. Much to get from it, but it's not the album it seems like.

For a time in U.S., it was sold as two separate albums. It makes sense. It doesn't have that double-LP sprawl, though the title track does give the impression that one is entering a novel and not a serial paperback.

[Quaco]

It's definitely a disappointment for me. That album should have been made. The Robin solo albums don't quite do it, though they're in the right direction.

[Guy E]

Odessa - A double-album. Well-accepted.

It's taken me some time to come to terms with Odessa. The opening title track is completely unlike anything else on the album. It sets you up for an expansive and wondrous album ... but the rest of the songs are kind of this acoustic songwriting seminar. Much to get from it, but it's not the album it seems like.

I'm surprised that disappointment sticks with you though. After the first listen you knew that the title track was as far out as they would go... enjoy the album for what it is after that.

But... having spent my hard-earned adolescent earnings on the pricey double-LP back in 1969 I was always a little disappointed by Odessa too. 14 songs, three orchestral instrumentals; Bee Gees 1st had 14 songs. These days I listen to a fleshed-out iPod version that adds Nobody's Someone, The Singer Sang His Song, Chocolate Symphony and Bridges Crossing Rivers. Those last three were recorded earlier in 1968 and are bonus tracks on Idea, but I think they work well in the company of Odessa. There's no electric guitar on any of the three.

[Quaco]

Odessa - A double-album. Well-accepted.

It's taken me some time to come to terms with Odessa. The opening title track is completely unlike anything else on the album. It sets you up for an expansive and wondrous album ... but the rest of the songs are kind of this acoustic songwriting seminar. Much to get from it, but it's not the album it seems like.

I'm surprised that disappointment sticks with you though. After the first listen you knew that the title track was as far out as they would go... enjoy the album for what it is after that.

I am a comparative latecomer to the album. It's only in the last year or so that I've really gotten to know it, so the pain is still fresh. Though I've owned the LP for about 20 years! I had to have that cover.

And when I hear that title track -- even though it's padded, it's really just two fabulous verses -- I still imagine what could've been ...

[Charlie O.]

I was going to post this in Now Playing, but maybe it's better here:



A patchy album, and I'm being kind - most of the songs are about romantic-bordering-on-religious devotion, and are built around the hoariest of cliches, verbal and musical.

But I did have a long and lingering "moment" when I heard that voice again - strong, in fact virtually unchanged from when he was a weird teenager. What pleasure I derived from the album was largely to do with that voice cutting through the competent, sterile, loud, "modern" production and arrangements (even the tell-tale traces of almost-certainly-unnecessary Autotune).

When it was over, the three songs I wanted to hear again (and did) were the three that looked back. The very idea of Robin Gibb writing and recording a tribute to Alan "Fluff" Freeman is so unexplainably delightful to me that I almost wouldn't care if it was a lousy song - but in fact it's rather touching. Almost as touching as the salute to "Sydney" (Australia), a home demo tacked on the end of the album whose lo-fidelity comes as something of a relief/reward.

And this, his remake/remodel of the 1966 b-side to "Spicks And Specks", is really kinda wonderful, I think:






The original: