How does it compare to the artist's other releases
Not applicable
Value for Money
Advantages:
30 plus years of hits; no "Chain Reaction"
Disadvantages:
Lots of rubbish ballads that girls and wimps will like
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
What can you do about the Bee Gees? For 38 years they've been plying their trade in top quality pop and disco, and low-end, sugary ballads that have been covered by the likes of Steps, Boyzone and Take That. With benefactors such as these and no real influential power in music to speak of, it's alarming that after Madonna, Jacko, The Beatles and Elvis, they are the 5th best-selling recording act OF ALL TIME.
And so, hot on the heels of 1999's Greatest Hits comes this 2002-issued expanded companion of singles, top album tracks and covered songs in a double CD format. Catalogued in chronological order, the tracklisting alone makes fascinating reading as we trawl from the singles of 1967 on CD1 to tracks from 2001's top ten album, This Is Where I Came In.
Things start off in 1967 with a quadrilogy of important Bee Gee compositions. NEW YORK MINING DISASTER 1941 was their first hit, making number 12. Hot on the heels of this track was their first number one over, the epic and quite Wayne-friendly ballad, MASSACHUSETTS. Barry Gibb's quivering voice is spread all over this tune like a rash. It begins sloemnly and nervously before building into a powerhouse finale that puts most singers in the 21st century to shame. Sandwiched between these two tracks are the pitiful HOLIDAY and the much-covered TO LOVE SOMEBODY (Jimi Somerville and Nina Simone among others). It’s this latter track that stands out amongst these opener as possibly The Bee Gees most sugary and cheesy ballad, with the exception of HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE. But more of that later.
WORLD and WORDS follow suit, the latter woefully covered by Boyzone in 1996. As it's radio-friendly chords churn away at your ears you begin to realise that almost everyone loves the Bee Gees but not everyone loves all the Bee Gees songs. And this is the inherant problem with a 2CD collection of this band - much of the material is too samey. There are no experiments and everything is done as though following some kind of songwriting-by-numbers pamphlet. I'VE GOTTA GET A MESSAGE TO YOU's weighty chorus and baggage-laden verses follow suit. Three ballads in a row really is too much to bear for this reviewer.
Then things get a bit interesting. I STARTED A JOKE and FIRST OF MAY prove me wrong and highlight the band's lighter but more obscure side. Willing to mildly experiment and show off a weird side to their music, the latter reached number 6 in 1969. The former sunk without trace.
Every band reaches a nadir, a low point in their career where the ideas dry up and the spirits wane. It happened for the Bee Gees remarkably early - only five years in. Tracks like SAVED BY THE BELL, DON'T FORGET TO REMEMBER and the drearily plodding LONELY DAYS painted the Bee Gees as a ballad-first act: all high on fake sentiment and perfect harmonies. With tracks 13 and 14, namely HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART? and RUN TO ME, time was running out for the Brothers Gibb (the origin of the band's name) to come up with something different in the face of a changing musical.
That was 1972 and this was 1974. Whilst throwing a few ideas around in New York, the brothers went back to their hotel after a couple of failed sessions in the studio. It was whilst walking under an otherwise innocuous railway bridge, that Robin pointed out the constant, chattering beat of the train's wheels as they hit a slightly askew track. And lo! disco was born. With the idea and sound still fresh in their head, they returned to the studio and cut the chugging, chattering JIVE TALKIN'. The rest is history and the Bee Gees' future fortune and success was virtually assured especially when approached to write some songs for new, upcoming film starring an unknown actor called John Travolta. Yup, Saturday Night Fever.
The rest of CD1 plays out a mixture of pedestrian balladry and this new fangled thing called "disco" to reasonable effect. With the exception of JIVE TALKIN', MASSACHUSETTS and the final YOU SHOLD BE DANCIN' for me, CD1 is largely inessential. It's the familiarity of CD2 that makes this album stand up and edge you closer to the conclusion that this album is one disc and 15 tracks too long.
CD2 starts with the office party staple, STAYIN' ALIVE. If nothing it showcases that tradmark high pitched screech of Barry's and the whispered harmonies of Robin and Maurice. Then comes the previously mentioned HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE, asong virtually made for Sunday morning local radio. That Take That covered it virtually kills it off as a credible song. The almost country and western bassline, the insipid imagery ("I see you eyes in the morning sun") just adds to the nauseous feel.
And so we go through the middle section of CD2 in a ballad-disco-ballad formula with the likes of NIGHT FEVER, MORE THAN A WOMAN, TRAGEDY, and HEARTBREAKER. The lure of a great disco tune by the Bee Gees is osmething I've always found appealing but, just when I'm in the mood for a dance, on comes a ballad. Doh!
Then, as if by magic, we reach the 80s and clutch of songs that they wrote for other artists. Dionne Warwick, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers benefited from the Bee Gees' keen ear for a daytime radio tune with HEARTBREAKER and ISLANDS IN THE STREAM respectively (the latter a duet between Parton and Rogers that was expertly paraphrased by Pras for Ghetto Superstar in 1998). Luckily, they never recorded their most famous product, the awful Chain Reaction and it's thumping sub-Motown fails to appear here. Result!
All of which brings us on to the last handful of tracks in the Bee Gees' twilight chart years. 1987's YOU WIN AGAIN was their last number one and was recorded in a similar environment to Jive Talkin' (when the public had thought that the band were finishedand actually stands as a very good tune to this day with it's whispered verses, rousing chorus and bizarre synthesized trumpet solo near the end making it sound like a middle-aged version of The Whole Of The Moon.
Things peter out politely with ONE and early nineties efforts FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS and IMMORTALITY before bringing us bang up to date with 2001's THIS IS WHERE I CAME IN, a song so appalling that it reached only number 16 in the charts.
I made a mistake in buying this CD. In the past I had bought "expanded" CDs or box-sets by artists as diverse as Prefab Sprout, Elvis, David Bowie and Bob Marley and found some brilliant hidden gems. With the Bee Gees it's "what you see is what you get", I'm afraid. There is no fourth dimension to their music. Ballads or disco. Take it or leave it.
TRACKLISTING 1. New York Mining Disaster 1941 2. To Love Somebody 3. Holiday 4. Massachusetts 5. World 6. Words 7. I've Gotta Get a Message to You 8. I Started a Joke 9. First of May 10. Saved by the Bell 11. Don't Forget to Remember 12. Lonely Days 13. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? 14. Run to Me 15. Jive Talkin' 16. Nights on Broadway 17. Fanny (Be Tender With My Love) 18. Love So Right 19. If I Can't Have You 20. Love Me 21. You Should Be Dancing
Disc: 2 1. Stayin' Alive 2. How Deep Is Your Love 3. Night Fever 4. More Than a Woman 5. Emotion 6. Too Much Heaven 7. Tragedy 8. Love You Inside Out 9. Guilty 10. Heartbreaker 11. Islands in the Stream 12. You Win Again 13. One 14. Secret Love 15. For Whom the Bell Tolls 16. Alone 17. Immortality 18. This Is Where I Came In 19. Spicks & Specks
OVERALL So, who should get this 2CD celebration of the Brothers Gibb? Difficult one to answer. Huge fans will have all these tracks on album throughout the 70s and 80s, casual listeners will probably own 1999's Greatest Hits and extremely casual listeners will probably wish to pull the rug back and frug away to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
In short, too many songs by too bland an act. One of my record buying mistakes for sure.
Thanks for reading
Wayne
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40-track, double-disc overview of the Bee Gees' recording career. In typical, telling fashion, the Brothers Gibb have eschewed such exercises in ego inflation and...
