The Bee Gees (original)

No longer updated
See  The Bee Gees album by album

The Bee Gees are one of the biggest selling bands on the planet - their success was mainly in the Sixties and Seventies, though they retained a respectable following until the turn of the century. I have never been comfortable with their image, seeing them as a fluffy pop band of no interest, though they were there as part of my musical background for a long time, and while their music was poppy, it seemed well done, so I wasn't completely dismissive of them - just not interested in the music, and put off by their fluffy and uncool image. They did, however, have a big impact on me with Saturday Night  Fever. An astonishing musical achievement that had a big influence on the emerging disco scene. However, while liking and respecting their music for the film, I didn't think enough of the band to seriously seek out their other music (I did listen to a couple of other albums, but was put off by their flowery pop character). About a year or two ago, while looking into the development of prog rock I listened carefully to Odessa and was somewhat surprised and impressed. So I now think it's time to look closer at the band.

  Early history

The band was formed in Australia where they had their first few years of recording and performing, so they were initially associated with Australia, and I always thought they were Australian, but the brothers were born and brought up in Manchester. They emigrated to Australia in 1958, when the brothers were around 10 years old.  Some folks consider them British, others consider them Australian, and yet others view them as Anglo-Australian.  Their father, Hugh Gibb, was a drummer and bandleader, though not very successful. Some credit his interest in music with inspiring the brothers to form a band, though the brothers themselves tell a story that during Saturday Morning Pictures in Manchester, there was an opportunity for youngsters to mime along to a record, and the boys fancied doing this, but on the day they dropped and broke the record, so had to sing it live instead. The cinema manager liked the idea, and encouraged them to do it the following weeks. The boys called themselves The Rattlesnakes, though the band was short-lived. "The Battle of the Blue and the Grey" (YouTube)  1963  First single - performance on Australian TV.

Albums

The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs
 (1965)

An Australian only release which was mainly a collection of their previous three years of singles. Fairly typical mish mash of late Fifties / early Sixties ballads. Quite folky, yet some songs, such as the opener, "I Was A Lover, A Leader Of Men", have that grand CinemaScope baroque feel which would become a feature of the Bee Gees music. All songs written by Barry. Mostly harmless.

Wikipedia
Score: 3

Spicks and Specks  (1966)

This sounds more like a Bee Gees record than the first. Most songs are written by Barry, though Robin and Maurice both write one.  "Spicks and Specks" was released as a single in Australia, and was their first single released in the UK. There is mid 60s pop feel to the songs with suggestions of Burt Bacharach and The Walker Brothers. It's quite lightweight, but some of the vocal harmonies are powerful, particularly on "Playdown", hinting at what they would later do when both song quality and production improved.

Wikipedia
Score: 3 1/2

Bee Gees' 1st  (1967)

The band's first international release. An assured debut that fits in well with the psychedelic pop of the time, and is a fairly sophisticated and accomplished album. All songs credited to Barry and Robin. "New York Mining Disaster 1941" was the first song they wrote after moving back to the UK and signing with Robert Stigwood. The lyrics concern a trapped miner showing a photo of his wife to a colleague - Mr Jones. The brothers say they wrote it while sitting in a stairwell in the dark and imaging they were in a mine shaft. There was no New York Mining Disaster, and nobody is clear why the brothers named it that. It was their first international hit. The album has the developed baroque pop sound of the Bee Gees of the 60s. There is a similar sound here to what The Moody Blues were doing, plus The Hollies and others. It's a competent, listenable 60s album, but nothing special.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 8
Score: 5

Horizontal  (1968)

The band are now well into their stride, and the opening song, "World",  seems very typical of the sort of pop music they released in the Sixties with the vocal style associated with them at the time. It's this sort of stuff that put me off them. All three brothers are credited  jointly for all the songs.  "Lemons Never Forget" is an earnest and decent song. "Harry Braff" also has an edge, and could be something by the Kinks or the Hollies. "Birdie Told Me" filters its Beatles well enough that it could be something by Oasis, though "The Earnest of Being George" is perhaps too close to the Beatles to be of more than passing interest.  The big hit was "Massachusetts", which carries its Byrds influence very well. I always thought that Massachusetts was a difficult word for lads with big teeth to sing, and it seemed to take them longer than anyone else to get that word out of their mouth.  As with Bee Gee's 1st, this is a competent, listenable 60s album, and covers similar ground

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 7
Score: 4 1/2

Idea  (1968)

The huge CinemaScope melodramatic soaring sweep of the Bee Gees is nicely controlled here so it underscores and lifts the songs rather than swamping them.  There's also a mature and well orchestrated use of their vocal harmonies. The songs are decently crafted and professionally recorded to give a satisfactory sound. The songs are in line with contemporary 60s pop songs, and there's elements of The Hollies, The Beatles, The Kinks, in this album as much as in previous, though some Simon & Garfunkel has now crept in.   "I've Gotta Get A Message To You" was the big single, and it's a decent song. Indeed, the album is composed of decent songs - some work better than others, but there isn't a sense of filler.  I could really like the Bee Gees at this stage but for two things: 1) Singing in high register, particularly in vocal harmony, gives the songs a child like, non-serious quality. The voices work, but the overall sound tends toward the superficial rather than the authentic. 2) The songs nearly always tend to sound like someone else's song. Now, a lot of artists are clearly influenced by others, and can use that influence to propel them along in a new direction. But with the Bee Gees it feels too often that they remain within the influence and don't do much with it, so it seems as though they are being carried along on the tail of someone else's ideas. "Down To Earth" remains too close to "Space Oddity", but reduces it to banality, so instead of a doomed spaceman looking down on Earth we have "You can see if you stand on your chair. That there's millions and millions and millions and millions of people like you." So while I quietly like the album, it doesn't impress me or carry me away. There's too much of a sense of having heard it all before, and better, combined with the off-putting tweeness of the high register vocal harmonies.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 6
Score: 5 1/2

Odessa  (1969)

This is the Bee Gees most ambitious and original album so far. They put more effort into this than in their previous works, and while it shows, and the album is today respected, at the time the tensions in creating this ended up splitting them apart, and all for nothing as neither the public nor the critics liked the album. It's a double album, which tends to put people off. Double albums are hard to consume and understand - they demand a lot of time and attention from the listener. And the earnestness of this album, with little in the way of poppy light relief doesn't help. I find it a lump thats hard to digest. I can take the Bee Gees whimsy and grand portentousness when its on a small scale and is light, but when it comes burdened with the weight of a double length concept album, and without some of the colour and froth of their usual releases, then I start to balk. So I respect the attempt here to respond to the record company's desire for the band to make some kind of artistic statement to match the times, but for me it fails.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 9 
Score: 4

Cucumber Castle  (1970)

This is the album the two brothers made while Robin was still sulking. Without him they seem to leave behind the Beatles influence and go in a folky direction. It's a pleasant if rather small album, rather dated, and out of touch with what else was happening. There are folk songs accompanied by strings, even though this is 1970 and we have moved on to a stripped back sound of James Taylor, Nilsson, Crosby, Still & Nash, Joni Mitchell, etc. The lead single,  the country-tinged "Don't Forget To Remember", went up against Robin's "Saved By The Bell", which is typical lush, warbling Bee Gees music, both songs reached number 2 in the UK charts. After which the band sort of declined or disappeared until their disco sound of the late 70s.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 7
Score: 3

2 Years On  (1970)

Robin returns, and the result is an album of uninspired and poor quality songs which show their Beatles influence way too much. This is a second rate album in so many ways with very little to redeem it, though there is some energy and variety in the songs. I quite like the rocking "Back Home" which blends a bit of CSN&Y in with the Beatles.  The single, "Lonely Days", could be mistaken for a Paul McCartney song - this Beatles sound was picked up by Electric Light Orchestra who had a big success with it. The band are trying hard to modernise their sound with some rocky electric guitar, and a more direct overall sound, but that tends to underscore their dated 60s sound, and their tendency to copy rather than progress. The Hollies managed to get into the 70s with their own sound intact, but taking on board the contemporary mores and produce something wonderful like "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".  I think the boys are looking for their direction, and this album wasn't it.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 8
Score: 3

Trafalgar   (1971)

A fairly dreary warbling album. Liked by some as "lush pop", this is a collection of uninspired maudlin and sentimental ballads as though the boys were trying hard to please. Included in 1001 Albums, despite some "horrendous" songs, "bizarrely maudlin lyrics", and the usual rip-off of other people's songs, because "the rest is pure lush pop". The lack of ideas, progression, originality, lightness of touch, taste, self-awareness, energy, movement, and a real sense of what is happening in 1971 (Led Zep IV, Hunky Dory, Sticky Fingers, L.A. Woman, Blue, Tapestry, Every Picture, Imagine, and The Yes Album, for starters)  makes this album a genuine bummer. One of the worse Bee Gees albums, even though it does contain "How Do You Mend A Broken Heart", which is not my thing, but is a decent enough Burt Bacharach type song, sincerely sung.  (And Al Green did a wonderful cover).

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 8
Score: 2

To Whom It May Concern  (1972)

Stephen Holden's 1976 review in Rolling Stone provides telling and perceptive comments not just on the album but also on the band as a whole. He said that the Bees Gees occupied "a very limited territory of pop music", dealing mainly in ballads of "momentary pathos", and that the album was "headphone mood music that makes no demands beyond a superficial emotional surrender to its perfumed atmosphere of pink frosting and glitter", and that the Gibbs vocal style had developed to the point where "they sound more like reed instruments than singers".

There is a white soul touch to this album, picking up on the lush, smooth sound that was being developed in Philadelphia, and would be called the Philly Sound with artists such as The Delfonics with "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)", and Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes with "If You Don't Know Me by Now".  The white soul version of the Philly Sound was emerging around the same time with Daryl Hall & John Oates whose first album, Whole Oats, was released just after the Bee Gees album. 

"Paper Mache, Cabbages And Kings" is a fascinating song - there's Pink Floyd, Hall & Oates, John Lennon, Oasis, the Beatles, the Moody Blues, and Brian and Michael of "Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats & Dogs" fame. The album is professionally made and competent, and is pleasant enough to listen to with its lush and pleasing sound. But it's not really very satisfying, and a little goes a long way. It's a bit like eating candy floss - it's fun now and again, but essentially meaningless and unsatisfying.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 7
Score: 3

Life in a Tin Can  (1973)

There's a dreadful lack of ideas about this, and even the Bees Gees knack for knocking off professional and listenable songs has left them. This is very dull.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 4
Score: 2

Mr. Natural  (1974)

A number of commentators regard this as the transitional album which would lead the Bee Gees directly to the music of Saturday Night Fever. I can understand that, though To Whom It May Concern had already put the band on that route, albeit the journey went off course with  Life in a Tin Can.  Generally "Throw A Penny" is seen as the most obviously Philly-soulful of the tracks; though the track (as with most of the album) is nearer to rock than soul, it does have a James Brown beat that David Bowie liked to use, and had been using since at least 1972 when he played "Got To Have A Job" live. "Heavy Breathing" delivers that stomping James Brown beat more clearly, driving a strong R&B sound - it's the most accomplished song on the album, with some funky brass and wah wah guitar, and is worlds apart from the candyfloss Bee Gees.  The album is not fully achieved, but is musically more adventurous and serious than anything since Odessa, and is more accomplished than that. This is their best album since Idea, and possibly their best album so far.  

Wikipedia
AllMusic:
Score: 5 1/2

Main Course  (1975)

This is the Bee Gees breakthrough disco album. It opens with two classics - "Nights On Broadway", which became a disco hit when sung by Candi Staton, and "Jive Talkin" which was re-released on the Saturday Night Fever album (but not included in the film) and became part of the disco breakthrough associated with that film. "Nights On Broadway" is seen as significant for the falsetto screaming by Barry Gibb toward the end of the track. Though the band were used to falsetto singing, and Maurice Gibb does falsetto singing all through the song, it was Barry's first time, and was something he explored further in their disco songs. There's an interesting live version on Midnight Special in which Barry doesn't do his falsetto singing.  "Jive Talking" is a great funky track, and various influences can be detected, including "Superstition",   "Shame, Shame, Shame",  "Funky Stuff", "You're The One", and 461 Ocean Boulevard, particularly "Get Ready" and "Mainline Florida".

The album came out as a positive time for blue-eyed soul with a number of notable soul albums by white artists such as Young Americans (1975),  AWB (1974),  Abandoned Luncheonette (1973), Five-A-Side (1974), and Slow Dancer  (1974). Personally I feel those other albums are stronger than this, as after the first two (or three?) tracks, with a few exceptions ("Fanny" and "Baby As You Turn Away") the album becomes fairly ordinary. It has the usual competent crafted pop songs that plod along with various Gibbs warbling voices, but never rises above reasonably pleasant music. Though there are some really good (and excellent) tracks here, on the whole this is not as solid as the previous year's Mr. Natural.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 9
Score: 5

Children Of The World  (1976)

The opening track. "You Should Be Dancing", is awesome. A disco classic - it struts in a compelling fashion. The next few tracks are OK, but are give or take. "Boogie Child", the opener on Side Two, is a decent bit of white funk. Yvonne Elimann, who had worked with Clapton on 461 Ocean Boulevard, covered "Love Me", the second track, and the album finishes nicely with soft white soul ballads tinged with a little funk. It's pleasant stuff, and the end result is an attractive and listenable album. Nothing groundbreaking, but certainly quite accomplished.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 8
Score: 4 1/2

Here at Last... Bee Gees... Live    (1977)

The first official live Bee Gees album is a double album covering their hits from the Sixties and the Seventies. There is a lack of excitement in the performances. They seem to just work their way through the songs and then go home. Dull. For Bee Gees fans only.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 8
Score: 2

Saturday Night Fever  (1977)

Awesome.

Wikipedia
AllMusic:
Score:

Spirits Having Flown (1979)

A confident and assured album, carrying on the disco success of the previous albums. Very likable pop.


Wikipedia
AllMusic:
Score: 5

Living Eyes (1981)

Continuing the smooth soul, but without the funk, snap and crackle of their disco albums. There's a sense of returning to the flowery ballad style, but tempered by the smooth soul. As with almost everything the boys did, it's professional, crafted, pleasant, melodic, but essentially empty. Wallpaper music. Decent quality wallpaper, for sure, but not something you'd hang in the Tate or have long critical discussions about. (The most meaningful discussions  among Bee Gees fans appears to be "which of the awesome faultless Bee Gees albums is your favourite?")   "Don't Fall In Love With Me" is a good song. The vocal harmonies, while a little high, are controlled and effective, quite emotional, and remind me of some of the vocal harmonies of The Eagles on their early albums. But the rest of the album lacks edge. There are a number of popular artists who are able to pump out pleasant well crafted songs that lack authenticity, such as Paul McCartney, Prince, and Elton John, and the Bee Gees fall into this group. And, as with the others, they are able at times to produce songs which have that extra little something. But that extra little something is missing from this album. While "Don't Fall" is a good song, it's not so good that it saves the album, nor is it compelling enough to return to.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 6
Score: 3

E.S.P. (1987)

Contains "You Win Again", a great pop song. The boys have given up disco completely, and returned to their pop roots, but without the 6os baroque coating, so what we have here is a slice of pure 80s pop, with the upfront drums, touch of synth, and echoey vocals (held down from the top ranges, though in the background they stretch a bit, but that's well held in the background so it adds tone rather than dominating). This is a more grown up version of what Stock, Aiken and Walkman were producing. Adult Orientated Pop. Yes, it's ephemeral, but instantly attractive, and gently pleasant. Harmless and to some degree satisfying, albeit superficially, the Bee Gees have their place, as do other pleasure giving acts who produce well crafted songs such as Abba, Elton John and Prince. As I'm someone who looks for authenticity, originality, quirkiness, energy, creativity, and significance in my music, I find the Bee Gees a little lacking, other than in their disco period, particularly Saturday Night Fever,  but I fully understand the overall appeal, and can respect and enjoy their great moments, such as "You Win Again". The rest of the album isn't to that standard, but works well enough on its own terms.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 4
Score: 2 

One (1989)

The AllMusic review of this says "It may be weightless, but it's polished," and that's a good summary of the Bee Gees themselves.  So, the Bee Gees are not Led Zeppelin, but Fine-cut Bubbles. This is a particularly weightless album, and some of the brothers' usual crafting appears to have deserted them.  Indeed, for much of the time it doesn't even sound like the boys. Probably the Bee Gees worse album so far.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 5
Score: 1 1/2 

High Civilization (1991)

Into the 90s with a harder sound, and some return of funk and rock to reproduce a commercial dance-pop sound. As usual it's well done, but quite derivative and inconsequential.  The band are again following the sound and style of Stock Aitken Waterman to make instantly appealing but transient pap pop. It sells, but it doesn't care, and it doesn't matter.

Wikipedia 

AllMusic: 4
Score: 2 

Size Isn't Everything (1993)

The boys have upped the ante from dance-pop to new jack swing.  This is a cooler, more mature sound than they usually deal in. The best songs are "Paying The Price Of Love" and, less so, "For Whom The Bell Tolls". Both were released as singles, with "For Whom" being particularly successful.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 6
Score: 3  

Still Waters (1997)

This is the boys' George Michael album, and it's a decent imitation, though lacking in the quality of the original. Quite likable as background music.

Wikipedia
AllMusic: 5
Score: 3 1/3 

One Night Only (1998)

I find this live album well judged and attractive. It's a useful summary of their career presented in a plain and honest style. The production is not as polished as the original studio versions, but that serves to bring the songs and the band closer to the listener, so the result is a surprisingly humble and intimate experience which is quite engaging. I like it.


Wikipedia
AllMusic:
Score: 5 1/2

This Is Where I Came In (2001)

The final regular album by the group.


Wikipedia
AllMusic:
Score:

Compilations

Best of The Bee Gees (1969) 

The Best of the Bee Gees Vol 2 (1973) 

Greatest  (1979) 

Tales From The Brothers Gibb (1990) 

Their Greatest Hits (2001) 

Number Ones (2004)

Love Songs (2005) 

The Ultimate (2009)

Timeless (2017)

Discography

• The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs (1965)
• Spicks and Specks (1966)
• Bee Gees' 1st (1967)
• Horizontal (1968)
• Idea (1968)
• Odessa (1969)
• Cucumber Castle (1970)
• 2 Years On (1970)
• Trafalgar (1971)
• To Whom It May Concern (1972)
• Life in a Tin Can (1973)
• Mr. Natural (1974)
• Main Course (1975)
• Children of the World (1976)
• Spirits Having Flown (1979)
• Living Eyes (1981)
• E.S.P. (1987)
• One (1989)
• High Civilization (1991)
• Size Isn't Everything (1993)
• Still Waters (1997)
• This Is Where I Came In (2001)

Albums ranked

* Roxborough
* Ranker
* Medium

Summary

The Bee Gees had a long and very successful career. They were (and still are) hugely liked, and have some devoted (and largely uncritical) fans. Throughout their career they followed and copied what was going on, and were able to produced well crafted and professional songs with catchy hooks and pleasant melodies. Their lyrics were superficial, but worked within the context of what they were doing. While many critics dismissed them, finding them trivial, lightweight, irritating, etc, and they retained a naff image, even during their respected Saturday Night Fever period, they retained the loyalty of their fans and (mostly) the record buying public. Or, at least, that section of the record buying public that enjoys superficial but pleasant and well crafted pop songs. The Bee Gees are similar to Paul McCartney, Elton John, Prince, and Abba, in that they produce loads of well crafted and appealing pop songs with mostly no depth or significance, though they can, now and again, produce something that reverberates. Weightless but polished is how one reviewer has described them.  I find listening to the Bee Gees is a bit like eating candy floss - it's fun now and again, but essentially meaningless and unsatisfying.  As I'm someone who looks for authenticity, originality, quirkiness, energy, creativity, and significance in my music, I find the Bee Gees a little lacking, other than in their disco period, particularly Saturday Night Fever,  but I fully understand the overall appeal, and can respect and enjoy their great moments.

People talk of the band having two periods, the pop of the 60s and the disco of the 70s, but it seems to me they have several periods, the four best identifiable are:
1) The baroque pop period of the 60s in which they were copying The Beatles, The Hollies and The Moody Blues. This is the most popular period among Bee Gees fans. The stand out albums from this period are Bee Gees' 1st and Odessa. The 1st sets up what they are and will largely remain - effective copyists who can craft melodic and popular songs. Odessa is an example of that, as it's an effective synthesis of the psychedelia, concept, and baroque albums that were popular on the pop scene in the late 60s,. It has attracted interest recently, and is currently be reappraised, though the reappraisal appears out of proportion to its actual benefits - I suspect that interest will eventually die down, and the album will slide back into relative (or complete) obscurity.
2) The lost period. While Odessa (1969) is currently seen as possibly the band's best album, at the time of its release it was a commercial and critical failure, and it led to the band splitting up. They reformed  by the end of 1970, but had entered a slump in which they were still making their somewhat lush baroque pop in a period where such music was no longer fashionable, and the boys were struggling to find a new identity and somewhere to fit in. Though they still managed the occasional chart hit, their sales overall had declined, and they found themselves infamously playing Batley Variety Club.
3) The disco period.
4) The post disco mature period



Voice/Singing
They are best known for their high register vocal harmonies. This divides opinion. It's like Marmite - you either love it, and find it soars gloriously, or hate it, and find it grating. Used well it can be an effective tool, but often it is overused.
4/10

Image
The Bee Gees are not cool. Never have been, and never will be. They are talked about in a sniggering manner in some circles. And this infamous interview by Clive Anderson in which he manages to sustain a gentle mocking attack on them utilising various aspects that people joke about regarding the brothers, and to which they react badly and end up walking off camera, sums up their image quite well. A combination of naffness, self-importance, and lacking in humour.
1/10

Lyrics
Lyrics are workable, albeit rather limited.
4/10

Music
Music is largely derivative commercial pop echoing the trends of the day, and shamelessly copying other artists. It is however well crafted and invariably will be melodic, and the best songs have effective hooks. What they did in the disco period is their best work.
6/10

Impact/Influence
They were up to Saturday Night Fever just another pop band. Commercially successful, but not critically respected, and after Saturday Night Fever the same is true. Without Saturday Night Fever the brothers would have gradually slid out of view and eventually have been forgotten. Despite attempts to go back and see things in Odessa that really are not there, it is  Saturday Night Fever and the works immediately before and after that, which marks their true impact and influence. Ignore everything else, it is for that alone they will be remembered.
7/10

Importance
Though their importance rests on a short period, they did have a significant cultural impact in that period.
5/10

Popularity
Very popular.
8/10

Star quality
They have a big and faithful fan base, but outside of that there isn't a huge amount of respect.
3/10

Emotional appeal
They produced well crafted but superficial pop songs.
2/10

Legacy
They will be remembered for  Saturday Night Fever.
5/10

Total:45/100

Links

* BrothersGibb
* Lyrics
* Roxborough
* AllMusic
* Discogs
* Charts
* GibbsSongs
* BestEverAlbums





87 April 2019
110 Jan 2020