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Hunter T Wolfe wrote: Popel Vooje wrote: The Bee Gees - Bee Gees 1st
If they'd just made this one album and then split up ... Unneccessarily dogmatic, perhaps, but some of this sounds a world away even from the epic wall-of-sound ballads that dominate their subsequent late 60s output, let alone the chest-flashing falsetto swagger of their disco fever-era stuff. More psychedelic than anything else theye ver recorded, occupying similar territory to "Oddesey and Oracle" or The Left Banke. Sure, they were too in awe of "Revolver" -era Beatles for their own good, but in 1967, who wasn't?
That's a great album and definitely worthy of the lofty company of Oddesey and Oracle etc. All their first three albums are cut from the same cloth I think, though with somewhat diminishing returns, and then 'Odessa' is their second masterpiece in its own right. Personally I'm happy to stick with them up till 1973's country-rock 'Life in a Tin Can,' and even their disco era is undeniably great pop music, even if not something I'm going to neccesarily sit down and listen to through choice.
Currently the only other album of theirs that I own is that excellent late 60s "Best of..." compilation, which I'd imagine covers that era pretty well (if the next two albums are as spotty as you reckon). I did listen to "Odessa" once at work and thought it was good, but overlong - although I suspect it's the sort of album that improves on repeated listens.
Y'know, I might re-assess the disco era atuff one day, as there are enough decent songs to warrant it. I think enough time has elapsed for it not to be so inevitably associated with flared lapels, medallions and other cheesy artifacts from the late 70s. So far though I've been unable to shake the childhood indoctrination I received from my then-teenage brother about how only punk and hard rock were real music and disco was strictly for posers (in spite of the fact that he himself escaped it a long time ago).
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