from the discussion on the passing of Maurice Gibb, it seems clear to me that some people on here don't realize just how big the Bee Gees were in the late 70s or how unfair radio has treated them since then.

As for how big they were, I wasn't born when Elvis emerged and was just a baby when the beatles started, but I've never seen anyone else just totally dominate radio like the Bee Gees at their peak. Not Prince during Purple Rain, not Michael Jackson during Thriller. To look at how big they were, you have to look at more than just the staggering number of records they sold in the late 70s because it was more than that because other people sold a ton of records just because they sounded like the bee gees as the bee gees wrote and produced for others at the same time.

First, there is all of Andy Gibb's hits - all written and produced either by Barry Gibb or by all 3 bee gees. Then there were huge hits by people like Yvonne Elliman and Samantha Sang with Emotion - the only hit of here career. One year (1978 I think), the bee gees had the number one song something like 25 weeks of the year and it would have been more had they spread the releases out more as they kept knocking themselves out of the #1 spot. One week 5 of the top 10 songs in the country were written and produced by the Bee Gees.

Because of writing for others, they sacrificed sure #1 hits of their own - More Than a Woman was going to be a certain #1 hit, the 4th bee gees #1 from Saturday Night Fever, but at the last minute they decided not to release it because Tavaras was releasing their own version of the song and they didn't want to take away from Tavaras's sales.

And on the radio if there wasn't a bee gees song playing right now, there were two sure ways to hear one. Change to the other station or wait for the next song. Either one would usually work.

The entire time they were in teh studio writing and recording Spirits Having Flown the Bee Gees had the #1 album in the country.

Then what happened - radio decided to punish the Bee Gees for being successful. Nothing released as the Bee Gees could get airplay. It didn't matter how good it sounded or how many people liked it, radio wouldn't play it. Radio decided the Bee Gees were "disco" and wouldn't play them, but they only decided this after disco. At the time, the Bee Gees weren't considered "disco". Bee Gees songs like Jive Talking, Nights on Broadway were played on "classic rock" stations in the 70s. Afterwards, these were labled as disco - there's no way Nights on Broadway is disco. Shoot, I think they even had a top 10 country hit with Come On Over. Yet while radio wouldn't play "disco", which really meant artists big in the late 70s, they sure played the heck out of "dance music".

The Bee Gees were in the strangest posisition. In the 80s, virtually everything they wrote for other artists was hugely successful. They wrote and produced the biggest album of Barbara Streisands career - Guilty and the biggest album of Kenny Roger's career - Eyes that see in the Dark, which included one of the biggest country hits ever - Islands in the Stream.

After doing these hugely successful projects for others, the Bee Gees released a song which internationally was perhaps the biggest hit of their career (it was the most played song of the year in europe), You Win Again, an awesome song, and US radio totally refused to play it. They just totally nailed it with this song - a song which should been #1 for weeks.

A few years later they released a song, For Whom teh Bell Tolls, which the reviewers raved over - calling it the best song on radio, period, only radio never played it. A few years ago someone had a hit that was a blatent rip off of this song (I didn't listen to radio enough to say who it was or what song, but I'm sure someone will know just from listening to the song). They did manage to break through the bias with a couple of hits - One, Alone

There are some awesome songs the Bee Gees have recorded these past 20 years that nobody knows about because of radio's refusal to play them - songs like You Win Again, The Longest Night, One, Ordinary Lives, Bodyguard, Flesh and Blood, Paying the Price of Love, Omega Man, Haunted House, Blue Island, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Alone, Still Waters Run Deep, Irristable Force, Rings Around the Moon, This is Where I Came In, Deja Vu, Wedding Day, Sacred Trust, Just In Case, Immortality, etc. The albums This Is Where I Came In, Size isn't Everything, Still Waters, One, and ESP are all outstanding, as is the live album One Night Only, and deserve to be as well known as albums like Main Course, Children of the World, Saturday Night Fever, and Spirits Having Flown.

Watching Amazon's top sellers this past week since the tragic loss of Maurice confirms there are a lot more Bee Gees fans around that radio ever gives credit for. The Bee Gees have had as many as 5 of the top 100 albums on amazon all week, and have had consistantly 5 of the top 10 selling music DVDs and VHS tapes on Amazon this past week - one time I looked the entire top 5 video tapes and 5 of the top 7 musc DVDs were the Bee Gees.

Alan

in my lifetime the Bee gees were Huge but nothing like Michaelmania" but that is a whole different topic.the Bee Gees are great Songwriters&also understood Groove.the image associated with them is Gold Chains,White Polished Clothes&Smooth Grooves.in other words the reason why you don't hear enough on the Bee Gee's is because they got treated like Negroes by the Industry&paid a Dear Price for being Down.it took them a whole Decade&change before folks in the General Media allowed them too move on.the Media IMHO treated them as if they were Vannilla Ice Bad.but if you have followed there Career's as I have you will notice these Cats were always the real deal.there work has been Covered by Coutless other Acts&there Impact never went away as far as I was Concearned.they were one of the Most Dominat Forces in Music History period&don't get half the due they should still too this Day IMHO.

mistermaxxx said:

There are two reasons I say the Bee Gees were bigger. One is the number of hits they wrote for others in the same time period. The other is that Michael Jackson said during the thriller time frame the Bee Gees were his biggest influence, calling them brilliant, so his success was an extension of what they did.

btw: Barry Gibb and Michael Jackson have been working together on a project - I'm not sure exactly what, but it should be interesting to see what comes out of that, but I'm sure it's on hold right now.

Alan,that is an excellent commentary you wrote,and I agree with everything you said.The Bee Gees are an incredible band,and I still don't think the world truly realizes how great and talented they really are.

alandail said:

Michael has Been Greatly Influenced by them as have countless others but back in 1995 Edition of "Rolling Stone" Magazine Mick Jagger was asked what Artist or Act had a Great Run&He Mentioned Michael Jackson right away on that point.yeah I Know about MJ&Barry working together.they worked together before for the song "Eaten ALive" for Diana Ross that MJ&Berry Co-Wrote&Berry Produced.in my time I caught some of the Bee Gees Success but I saw MichaelMania Live&Fully in Color nothing like it since.

Thanks for this post, Alan. I've been a fan of the Bee Gees since You Win Again hit number one when i was 12, so it looks like it's gonnna be a life-long love affair as they're still one of my favourite bands. And even though at the time of Mo's death i thought that as a sign of respect they should dis-continue the band, i'm now glad that they've decided to carry on.

A little Bee Gees trivia for ya...


***In April 1978,the Bee Gees had the top three songs on the U.S. charts..."Stayin Alive" was Number One,"Night Fever" was Number Two and Samantha Sang's "Emotion" was Number Three (The Bee Gees wrote and produced that song,as well as doing backup vocals).

***The Bee Gees scored the soundtrack for 'Stayin Alive',the 1983 sequel to 'Saturday Night Fever'.However,this time around,they weren't too impressed with the way their songs were used in the film.

***Throughout the years,MANY artists have covered their songs...Melba Moore did "You Stepped Into my Life" in 1978...Al Green covered "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" in 1972...Emotion" was covered by Johnny Mathis in 1978,and by Destiny's Child last year...Luther Vandross covered "How Deep Is Your Love" in 1993...Yvonne Elliman covered both "Love Me" and "If I Can't Have You" in the late 70s.

***In 1977,The Bee Gees asked R&B group Tavares to be their opening act on their world tour.After the tour was over,the brothers offered them a song---"More Than A Woman"---which Tavares used for a 1977 album.For the 'Saturday Night Fever' movie,The Bee Gees recorded their own version and the Tavares version was used,as well.

***The song "If I Can't Have You" was recorded by The Bee Gees in 1977 (it was a B-side).For the 'SNF' movie,Yvonne Elliman recorded her own version,which I tend to favor more than the original version by the brothers.

***In 1982,the Bee Gees wrote and produced an album for Dionne Warwick called 'Heartbreaker'.The title track because a huge comeback hit for Warwick,but she actually turned this song down at first! The brothers and Clive Davis (the executive producer) had to talk her into singing it,because she HATED this song at first.(I bet she had no problem with it when it reached the Top 10...lol...)

***To those of you who have Barbra Streistand's 1980 album 'Guilty' (produced by the Bee Gees),don't you think that Barbra and Barry Gibb look a little TOO COSY on the inside photos??
[This message was edited Mon Jan 20 5:57:31 PST 2003 by DavidEye]

DavidEye said:

I think you mean April 1978.

Cloudbuster said:

Oops! Yes,I meant 1978

DavidEye said:

DavidEye said:

I AGREE!

It's only really the U.S. where the boys had some trouble regaining their audience after the Saturday Night Fever backlash. And in recent years they've not done too badly at all. The last two studio albums both made the American Top 20, Still Waters (97) reached no.11 and This Is Where I Came In (01) reached no.16.

Some good news. The Greatest Hits album has re-entered the UK album charts at no.30, while HMV and Virgin have placed it at numbers 3 and 11, respectively.

Cloudbuster said:

the USA marvels at Success&then wants too take it away.the Bee Gees here in America got treated like Negroes though IMHO after SNF.they got Hung Muisically here in the USA after SNF.

mistermaxxx said:

Yeah, when that disco backlash hit at the end of the 70's{by them being the largest and most popular disco act}they were bound to be the first ones on the hit list. But they indeed made some great music. And they should get props for writing some great songs. Like I always say, if you have a well written song, then you got a great bulk of your work already knocked out. These guys could write. I also liked their comeback song "One" at the end of the 80's.

Brother915 said:

I was Bumping too "One" Last Thursday outside our local Wallmart.

I was bumping to 'One' earlier today! Great tune.

one is good, but I always thought You Win Again was a better song and should have launched a bigger comeback. You Win Again had a great video too (VH-1 used pieces of that video for many years). The original video for One was great too (the one with clips of hot young fans at a Bee Gees concert), but then for some reason they ruined that video by taking out the clips of the fans and putting some irrelevant video in it's place - I guess record company decided to do that because I saw the Bee Gees complain about it once.

alandail said:

take my word on this one: the Bee Gees were just lucky too getting a Hit with "One" that took alot of work too even getting air-play.the Bee Gees like any other Act have had there share of Up's&Down's with the biz&Record Companys

Let's face it. They should've had a lot more big hits in recent years. Ordinary Lives, Bodyguard, Still Waters, Paying The Price Of Love, This Is Where I Came In, How To Fall In Love, these should have all hit bigger than they did. And goodness knows why they didn't release Deja Vu off of the last album. That was an obvious hit the first time I heard it!

Cloudbuster said:

I agree - Deja Vu is an awesome song. My wife and kids all love it too. It's hard to not just keep hitting the repeat button when that one is over.

Maurice's death finally promted me to get off of my ass and make some compilation CD's of their work which i've been thinking about doing for a long time. And as Barry and Robin have decided to call it a day it seems the time is right. I doubt any of you care but i'll share my choices with you anyway.

Disc one: Spicks And Specks, New York Mining Disaster 1941, To Love Somebody, Holiday, Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy Of Arts, I Can't See Nobody, Close Another Door, Barker Of The U.F.O., Massachusetts, World, And The Sun Will Shine, Birdie Told Me, Words, Jumbo, I've Gotta Get A Message To You, Kitty Can, I Started A Joke, Marley Purt Drive, First Of May, Melody Fair, Lamplight, Give Your Best, Odessa, Tomorrow Tomorrow.

Disc two: Don't Forget To Remember, The Lord, I.O.I.O., Sweetheart, Lonely Days, Portrait Of Louise, Morning Of My Life, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, The Greatest Man In The World, My World, Run To Me, Alive, Papermache Cabbages & Kings, South Dakota Morning, I Can't Let You Go, Charade, Jive Talkin', Nights On Broadway, Fanny (be tender with my love), Wind Of Change, Baby As You Turn Away.

Disc three: You Should Be Dancing, You Stepped Into My Life, Love So Right, Can't Keep A Good Man Down, Boogie Child, Love Me, Subway, Children Of The World, How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin' Alive, Night Fever, More Than A Woman, If I Can't Have You, (Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away, Too Much Heaven, Tragedy, Love You Inside Out, Living Together, Spirits (Having Flown).

Disc four: I Still Love You, Wildflower, The Woman In You, Someone Belonging To Someone, You Win Again, E.S.P., Live Or Die (hold me like a child), Ordinary Lives, One, House Of Shame, Secret Love, Dimensions, Ghost Train, Paying The Price Of Love, Blue Island, For Whom The Bell Tolls, How To Fall In Love.

Disc five: My Destiny, 855-7019, Alone, I Surrender, I Could Not Love You More, Still Waters (run deep), My Lover's Prayer, Irresistable Force, Closer Than Close, Obsessions, Rings Around The Moon, Emotion, Islands In The Stream, Just In Case, This Is Where I Came In, Sacred Trust, Deja Vu, Technicolour Dreams.

Exhaustive, eh?
[This message was edited Fri Feb 14 13:19:18 PST 2003 by Cloudbuster]

sounds good - a couple of tracks I would have added

Edge of the universe (the live version)
The Longest Night
Omega Man
Decadance
Decadance (Classic House Mix)

And this one that was released on a robin gibb solo album but is really the Bee Gees and is awesome

Toys

Plus these two that aren't technically Bee Gees songs

Desire
Immortatlity from One Night Only

Alan

Yeah, I've got Toys. It's on the box-set. Good tune.

...
[This message was edited Fri Jan 24 3:27:46 PST 2003 by DavidEye]

Cloudbuster said:

The Greatest Hits has moved up to no.9 from no. 30 on the official UK album charts.

Funny what death can do, isn't it!