Ed's Bee Gees Appreciation Thread Part 2: 1975-Present

Just relistened to Living Eyes. If one day this record will rise to my all time favourite album status I will not be too surprised. This is genius. Like Kind of Blue this is an LP that opens new emotions and horizons each time it's played. It really need to be played late at night, thus all the images on tunes like "Be who you are" come alive. You can close you eyes and see the deepest oceans and distant stars etc. (In case anybody wonders I didn't even smoke anything lately! ) It's a perfect introduction to Bee Gees for people who used to hate Bee Gees and even for Beach Boys fans (Wildflower sounds like the best BB song BB never wrote).


P.S. I don't know if it's a correct observation but I can see some historical similarities between Living Eyes and ABBA's Visitors. Both records were too mature and sophisticated for the audiences and thus more or less flopped. Both could be artistical peaks as well...Now if Bee Gees did stop here and never reunited (thus never releasing some of crap that they did later on) this could be probably the most fantastic swansong in pop history IMHO.
P.S.S. And of course the title track features the most beautiful bridge ever written:

We are of age, we are in time
We are forever
Right now when the power is mine
I leave you heaven and the earth
I leave you never
And living to love is the reason we shine

 

Um...you kinda like it, huh?

I doubt that LIVING EYES will ever be appreciated by anyone beyond the core Bee Gees fandom, but you never know, took years for FOREVER CHANGES and ASTRAL WEEKS to become legendary in spite of modest(to be kind)sales in the early days.

In a way, the curse of SNF is the main cause. It isn't that the music is bad, it's just that the more garish disco material has totally dominated their persona ever since, and they've never been able to shake the curse. It's a nice curse to have, a kind of pop immortality...but also stifling and stereotyping, no matter what they did.

 

Actualy it's that people beyond the core Bee Gees fandom propably never even heard Living Eyes. Chances are that this record will appeal to quite a few folks that dismissed Bee Gees as a lightweight disco band etc.
P.S. Agree on the curse, unfortunately (as much as I love SNF period Bee Gees)

 

Time to move on to the soundtrack for STAYING ALIVE, from '83. Well...the least said about the non-Gibb Side 2 the better, heh....as for Side 1, let's just say the magic from SNF was not in evidence..which was also true of what we saw on the screen, too.... Time to light up those solo careers....

Interesting side note: original vinyl credit--"Digitally Mastered by Bernie Grundman."

1. The Woman In You
2. I Love You Too Much
3. Breakout
4. Someone Belonging To Someone
5. Life Goes On
6. Stayin' Alive (edited version)



7. Far From Over--Frank Stallone
8. Look Out For Number One--Tommy Faragher
9. Finding Out The Hard Way-Cynthia Rhodes
10. Moody Girl--Frank Stallone
11. (We Dance) So Close To The Fire--Tommy Faragher
12. I'm Never Gonna Give You Up--Frank Stallone & Cynthia Rhodes

 

Ed!
I thought you'd given up on us Bee Gees fans!

 

Magic not there? Oh c'mon - Breakout could be rather mediocre (by their standarts) but the rest of the tunes are killer! Woman in you - ever since I saw that video back in the 80's I was looking for that track. Why it wasn't a global N1 smash is still a mystery to me. I mean the tune was perfect for the time and no way it's any worse then Fame, What a feeling, She works hard for the money, I'm still standing and other post-disco megahits of that era. Someone belonging to someone is one of the finest Bee Gees ballads and Life goes on (for a lonely man) is as groovy as it gets. A friend of mine got the album a week ago and I don't think it left his CD player even once since! In fact I think it was the last Bee Gees record to fully feature the classic Bee Gees magic - it went missing somehow after the reunion.

 

Too bad I found this thread too late. I would have a lot to comment on it. The "Main Course" cover also had a different color in Brazil. I think it was blue. I've loved the Bee Gees since my early teens (I'm 44 now) and, curiously, I've recently met a few Brazilian fans who seem to rank their post-70's albums on the same level as the classic ones. "Living Eyes", "One" and "Still Waters" are often mentioned among their favorites in informal polls.

 

Emilio,

Post away! Never too late! I'd like to see my friends keep the two Bee Gees threads bumped up while I'm on vacation! I'm most interested to see that cover!

 

Wonder if anybody has any comments on Staying Alive OST? Sure it was a flop compared to SNF but I know plenty of people who really love these tunes. Ed, also I think before we go to ESP (1987) I guess we can take a look at solo records and records produced and written by Bee Gees in the early-mid 80's.

 

It's rather sad that nobody is interested in post reunion Bee Gees analysis here. While their 1987-2001 records are far from being classic they all feature some excellent music. But I would like to get back in time a little bit: anybody ever compared US and W.German CD pressings of Main Course and Children of the World? These are the only 2 titles in the new japanese series which suck sonicaly (the others range from good to excellent), so before Bee Gees get to remaster their entire catalogue I need to get the best sounding versions. I've heard plenty of praise for US Main Course so I wonder if it's better then my W. German (which is OK, but hardly a sonic gem)? The same goes for Children of the World.

 

I agree that it is sad that this thread has died. I was looking forward to going though the rest of the catalog. I think Ed's Moody Blues thread azlso died prematurely.

 

I think it's just that Ed's been on holiday. Hurry up, Ed - duty calls!

 

Alright already, I'm here! Rather unwillingly, perhaps, but you know....

Anyhoo, here we go...and I think doing the solo stuff makes sense at this juncture, but gotta get to Andy Gibb first. As you all know, not only was the trio's kid bro(who passed too young, sad to say)a big hit right out of the box, but they had considerable involvement with his music(and musical direction), and it's hard to leave him out of the canon, really, ancillary as he might seem. Nothing earth-shattering, but given the other '16'-type teen idols(think Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett)of the time, I'd wager Andy was the best of the bunch. FLOWING RIVERS was his first, and one might argue, best:



1. I Just Wanna Be Your Everything
2. Words And Music
3. Dance To The Light Of The Morning
4. Too Many Looks In Your Eyes
5. Starlight

6. (Love is) Thicker Than Water
7. Flowing Rivers
8. Come Home For The Winter
9. Let It Be Me
10. In

 

I have the brown Andy Gibb compilation CD and I treasure it, especially "Man on Fire."

 

Whenever this song is on the radio, I kept hearing it as "I just want to be your hairy thing".

 

You mean the chests?
Well, since we had an Andy Gibb thread lately I don't wanna repeat myself but Flowing Rivers is a great debut album with both Barry's and Andy's excellent contributions, awesome production and great remastering (as the whole Andy catalogue ).

 

More Andy:

SHADOW DANCING, released during the peak of Fevermania, would be his only Top Ten album entry, with of course, more hits and songs with help from the bros. Not a bad effort, all told....

1. Shadow Dancing
2. Why
3. Fool For A Night
4. An Everlasting Love
5. (Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away

6. One More Look At The Night
7. Melody
8. I Go For You
9. Good Feeling
10. Waiting For You

 

Despite Olivia's unexusable absense this is Andy's finest. Great "Bee Gees lite" record. If someone is hooked on late 70's Bee Gees sound, but doesn't wanna hear the classics for the 1000th time this is the way to go! And once again - the remastering is AWESOME! If only they used the same guy for Bee Gees own remasters in the future...

 

Sorry for getting back a little but a friend borrowed me a japanese CD of Spirits and I did an A/B test with my french one. Now the french one totally destroyed the japanese. It (japanese) truly sounds like crap! No life, no detail, either no-noised to death or simply taked from some very poor tapes. It's the same crappy sound as japanese Main Course and Children of the World. Something weird happened with 75-79 part of japanese reissue program. (Haven't heard japanese live 76 CD and now I don't even want to).
AVOID THESE LIKE PLAGUE!
The funny thing is every other CD from the same "blue OBI" series sounds awesome - the entire 67-74 output plus Living Eyes. Hope I saved some folks here a few bucks.

 

I just picked up the Japan CD reissue of Living Eyes. What a great album!! Paradise could be an adult contemporary hit today!

 

Believe me, it gets better with every listen! By 3rd or 4th listen it becomes and addiction... Do you like the sonics on this one?

 

It sounds fine to me.
I don't think it's remastered.

 

One more original one from Andy: AFTER DARK, 1980. Some good things here, but the public was slowly losing interest. Went gold, but after this his career was pretty much over. Pity...

Side 1:

1. After Dark
2. Desire
3. Wherever You Are
4. Warm Ride
5. Rest Your Love On Me

Side 2:

1. I Can't Help It
2. One Love
3. Someone I Ain't
4. Falling In Love With You
5. Dreamin' On

 

Ahhh! Enough of the Andy Gibb albums please! I beleive we still have a number of Bee Gees albums to discuss.

 

I smell poo...AG albums seem fair game for this thread, given the heavy involvment of the older brudders.