It\u2019s easy to forget how good something was after 30-plus years have gone by. <\/p>\n
Even though they are still making fine music, or were until brother Maurice Gibb\u2019s unfortunate death in 2003, the Bee Gees’ output has certainly slowed since their heyday. But the music in those five years, represented by 1975\u2019s Main Course <\/i>through 1979\u2019s Spirits Having Flown<\/i>, is still sparkling pop magic. <\/p>\n
Of course, those years also included the trio\u2019s watershed Saturday Night Fever <\/i>soundtrack from 1977. But though those songs solidified their place in pop music heaven (or hell, I suppose), in hindsight they were not the group\u2019s strongest songs from the era. <\/p>\n
Instead, it is the songs from the two albums that preceded SNF<\/i> that have best stood the test of time. Pop classics like \u201cNights on Broadway,\u201d \u201cJive Talkin\u2019\u201d and even the oddly named \u201cFanny (Be Tender With My Love)\u201d from Main Course,<\/i> and \u201cYou Should Be Dancing,\u201d \u201cLove So Right,\u201d \u201cLove Me\u201d and the marginally less successful, \u201cYou Stepped Into My Life,\u201d from Children of the World <\/i>(1976), far outshine the SNF <\/i>songs as well as those from the brothers\u2019 last big album, Spirits Having Flown<\/i>. <\/p>\n
In the context of this reissued Bee Gees Greatest Hits<\/i> double-disc set, originally released in 1979, \u201cStayin\u2019 Alive,\u201d \u201cNight Fever,\u201d \u201cHow Deep Is Your Love\u201d and \u201cMore Than A Woman\u201d retain all their raw, emotional power yet come off as follow-ups to the earlier hits, rather than the sonic juggernauts they were then. <\/p>\n
Is it because the SNF <\/i>songs are overexposed and the others aren\u2019t? Hard to say. Every song on here, of course, is well-crafted pop. This is the Bee Gees, after all. Even the songs from Spirits, <\/i>with the exception of \u201cLove You Inside Out,\u201d have a solid weight to them. \u201cTragedy\u201d and \u201cToo Much Heaven\u201d have both endured fairly well. <\/p>\n
But Bee Gees fans, even casual ones, have all of these songs. So why release them again? Well, other than revitalizing the sound (earlier discs sounded muddied compared to these tracks), there are seven bonus tracks — five updated remixes, one B-side from the era and an extended 12-inch version of \u201cStayin\u2019 Alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The B-side \u201cWarm Ride\u201d is nice to have as a relic but certainly not revelatory. And is seven minutes of \u201cStayin\u2019 Alive\u201d really any better than the two-minute-shorter version we\u2019re used to? (Answer: No, it’s just longer).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the five remixes that will make or break this collection. And they mostly acquit themselves well. The Jason Bentley\/Philip Steir remix of \u201cYou Should Be Dancing\u201d scores the most points by smartly updating the original mix, rather than tearing it down and completely recasting it. <\/p>\n
Also of interest is the Count Da Money remix of \u201cIf I Can\u2019t Have You,\u201d which, oddly, was written by the Brothers Gibb but made into a hit by Yvonne Elliman, and the Supreme Beings of Leisure Remix of \u201cHow Deep Is Your Love.\u201d I can take or leave the Future Funk Squad Remix of \u201cNight Fever.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only track that doesn\u2019t work for me is the Teddybears Remix of \u201cStayin\u2019 Alive.\u201d Other than the vocal tracks, there\u2019s not much here to even evoke the original. For me, a successful remix updates the track, adding a new sheen. It doesn\u2019t completely deconstruct the song for no apparent reason.<\/p>\n
Oh, and if you\u2019re wondering, yes, the reissue retains those glorious hazy photos of Barry, Robin and Maurice and their blow-dried-near-to-death lion\u2019s manes of hair \u2013 on their heads and <\/i>on their chests.<\/p>\n
By the way, the Bee Gees recorded nine more albums in the years between 1979 and 2003 \u2013 and, of course, they have an entire catalog of hits previous <\/i>to 1975. This collection represents the smallest, though most successful, part of their career. The rest is equally worth exploring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":29082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6121],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40601","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-bee-gees","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40601"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40601"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}