I don't love American Idol, though. Tonight is Bee Gees night on Idol, but I won't watch. American Idol has a bunch of people singing in a way I don't care for to add one more(at least) person to the landscape of people making shitty music.
But, as the title illustrates, I love the Bee Gees! As songwriters and performers, they are utter originals.
I was about 7 when "Saturday Night Fever" came out and I jumped on the "Disco Sucks" bandwagon, which they were the face for the movement. Their shameful evisceration of the Beatles songs in the movie "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" guaranteed my hatred of them for years to come.
When I got older some of their older songs crept into my conscience, then into my CD collection. It's telling that they released 2 greatest hits collections before they morphed into the R&B/Disco juggernaut they became, they were the masters of melancholy pop and have two solid discs of proof. Their vocal arrangements and the vocals themselves let them get away with things that would make other bands sound silly and cloying but fit the Brothers Gibb like a freakin' glove. I mean their first hit was called "New York Mining Disaster 1941" fer Christsakes!
Exhibit One:"I Started a Joke"
The hardest part of writing this was picking videos, they have so many great songs from that era:"Massachusetts", "I Got to Get A Message To You","Words", "How Do You Mend A Broken Heart" and of course the often covered(and mangled) "To Love Somebody"
That's not to say that their dance stuff wasn't great as well; in time, I softened up to that along with Disco in general. This transformation began with their "Main Course" album containing the unforgettable "Jive Talkin'" (The rhythm of which was inspired by the sound their car made as it went over a bridge they took on the way to the studio every day)
But the sweet still had the sour. Check out the sorrow weaving it's way through "Nights on Broadway."
They still brought the slow jams, "Too Much Heaven", "How Deep Is Your Love". It's the rare millionaire pop star that can still deliver a love song with true emotion. "Cause we're living in a world of fools/ breaking us down/ when they all should let us be/ we belong to you and me" Genius!
American Idol contestants have sung their songs and will sing their songs again, but I'll stick with the originals.
2 comments:
how could you leave out the bombastic, 2-album Odessa? You cannot truly love the Bee Gees unless you've heard the majesty of City on the Black Sea!
I grew up with the Bee Gees playing on my parents' car radio, and I still love their music!
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