Since Syn’s AOTM has taken off, a couple of people have asked me, the old timer of the group, to do something similar. I’ll try to space it in between Syn’s entries, so I don’t steal his thunder (haha!). I certainly don’t expect as much engagement as Syn gets, but if my contribution here can help some of you find some new old music you haven’t heard, all the better.
This inaugural entry is a compilation album by one of the defining groups of the 70s. We’re talking about “The Ultimate Bee Gees.”
Now, most of you probably just think of the Bee Gees as “that disco group from Saturday Night Fever,” and maybe the funniest five minutes of “The Office” on TV. Recently, I sat down to watch the HBO documentary on the band, and what I found out about them was fascinating and inspiring and made them a lot more interesting. They actually had a decent run in the late 60s and early 70s, well before the disco era, and were primarily considered to fit the “singer-songwriter” genre, and a lot of the earlier tunes give that away, in an almost “Spinal Tap” kind of way – I actually think the early Tap classic “Cups and Cakes” was a riff on the Bee Gees first hit, “Spicks and Specks,” which is included on this compilation.
But then you DO get into the disco era, and the sheer VOLUME of hit songs the Brothers Gibb put out in the late 70s as the Bee Gees, and then later (after the “Disco sucks!” movement killed them the way grunge killed hair metal) as prolific songwriters for others. They also may well have been the very first act to use a drum loop. And when I say drum loop, I mean that literally. Two bars of drums were cut from the tape of another song, spliced together end-to end, and hung all around the control room to control feeding the loop into the recorder to bounce it down to its own master tracks on repeat. That became the smash hit “Stayin’ Alive,” and resulted in hundreds of calls coming in to hire the steady hand of session drummer “Bernard Lupé.”
To get back to disco itself though, disco was created and grown in underground New York City gay bars. Back then, in most places it was a crime to be gay or trans, or anything but a straight man or woman. Discreet gay bars popped up as a way for people “outside the norm” to be open and celebrate who they were in safety, and disco was born out of this – something that is clear and obvious when you look at the Village People, an iconic pure disco vocal group of the era (YMCA, In the Navy, Macho Man). The Bee Gees took disco mainstream, making it okay for “normal” (read “straight”) people to enjoy the music.
Standouts, for me, on this double album are plenty: You Should be Dancing, Stayin’ Alive, Jive Talkin, Nights on Broadway, Tragedy, Night Fever, More than a Woman, If I Can’t Have You, How Deep is Your Love, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, Too Much Heaven, Emotion, Islands in the Stream (made famous by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton), Heartbreaker, Guilty (made famous by Barbra Streisand). I *know* that each and every one of you knows some of these songs, but to hear them all in one place is to realize the majesty of the Bee Gees – and they WROTE all of these songs. Estimates are around 1,000 or more completed and recorded Bee Gees songs in existence, though most wound up on the trash heap – their worst songs are probably better than 90% of the pop music released in the last 20 years.
Do yourself a favor and give THE ULTIMATE BEE GEES a listen, and see if you agree with history that they’re a “disco joke” or do you think they were a blueprint for a songwriting masterclass – or in between? Then leave your thoughts here. I’d love to know what you think!
This inaugural entry is a compilation album by one of the defining groups of the 70s. We’re talking about “The Ultimate Bee Gees.”
Now, most of you probably just think of the Bee Gees as “that disco group from Saturday Night Fever,” and maybe the funniest five minutes of “The Office” on TV. Recently, I sat down to watch the HBO documentary on the band, and what I found out about them was fascinating and inspiring and made them a lot more interesting. They actually had a decent run in the late 60s and early 70s, well before the disco era, and were primarily considered to fit the “singer-songwriter” genre, and a lot of the earlier tunes give that away, in an almost “Spinal Tap” kind of way – I actually think the early Tap classic “Cups and Cakes” was a riff on the Bee Gees first hit, “Spicks and Specks,” which is included on this compilation.
But then you DO get into the disco era, and the sheer VOLUME of hit songs the Brothers Gibb put out in the late 70s as the Bee Gees, and then later (after the “Disco sucks!” movement killed them the way grunge killed hair metal) as prolific songwriters for others. They also may well have been the very first act to use a drum loop. And when I say drum loop, I mean that literally. Two bars of drums were cut from the tape of another song, spliced together end-to end, and hung all around the control room to control feeding the loop into the recorder to bounce it down to its own master tracks on repeat. That became the smash hit “Stayin’ Alive,” and resulted in hundreds of calls coming in to hire the steady hand of session drummer “Bernard Lupé.”
To get back to disco itself though, disco was created and grown in underground New York City gay bars. Back then, in most places it was a crime to be gay or trans, or anything but a straight man or woman. Discreet gay bars popped up as a way for people “outside the norm” to be open and celebrate who they were in safety, and disco was born out of this – something that is clear and obvious when you look at the Village People, an iconic pure disco vocal group of the era (YMCA, In the Navy, Macho Man). The Bee Gees took disco mainstream, making it okay for “normal” (read “straight”) people to enjoy the music.
Standouts, for me, on this double album are plenty: You Should be Dancing, Stayin’ Alive, Jive Talkin, Nights on Broadway, Tragedy, Night Fever, More than a Woman, If I Can’t Have You, How Deep is Your Love, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, Too Much Heaven, Emotion, Islands in the Stream (made famous by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton), Heartbreaker, Guilty (made famous by Barbra Streisand). I *know* that each and every one of you knows some of these songs, but to hear them all in one place is to realize the majesty of the Bee Gees – and they WROTE all of these songs. Estimates are around 1,000 or more completed and recorded Bee Gees songs in existence, though most wound up on the trash heap – their worst songs are probably better than 90% of the pop music released in the last 20 years.
Do yourself a favor and give THE ULTIMATE BEE GEES a listen, and see if you agree with history that they’re a “disco joke” or do you think they were a blueprint for a songwriting masterclass – or in between? Then leave your thoughts here. I’d love to know what you think!
)
) and come back with my thoughts!! Love this!!!
I only know very few Bee Gees songs so this will surely be interesting! 
), "jive talkin", " Night Fever", "more than a woman" (I found the line " We can take forever just a minute at a time" soooo good and true not only for love buf for life in general, live in the here and now, one minute at a time. That's how it resonated with me) , " Boogie Child" , "To love somebody", " I started a joke", "How can you mend a broken heart", "Heartbreaker".
I'll watch that documentary you mentioned as soon as I can, it seems really interesting especially now that I've heard more of them!!