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Thread started 12/19/20 5:45pm

rogifan

Bee Gees documentary on HBO Max

I thought it was well done. A fair amount of time was spent on the Saturday Night Fever era. I always thought The Bee Gees were unfairly tagged with disco hate. There was plenty of bad disco in the mid to late 70s but not from The Bee Gees. They were really great songwriters and had great vocal harmony. And some of the songs they/Barry wrote for others (Woman in Love, Heartbreaker, Islands in the Stream) are fantastic songs. Highly recommend this documentary.

Paisley Park is in your heart
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Reply #1 posted 12/20/20 9:01pm

TrivialPursuit

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Just watched this the other day. There was a large chunk on the SNF part, but they also wove the anti-disco movement into it, and then drew the parallel of them losing popularity because of that. But a good point was made that before the Bee Gee's, disco had very little melody or singing to it. The Bee Gees put melody, harmonies, etc, into it. I agree with that.

It was also cool to see the little snip about "Tragedy," when Barry was telling a keyboard player to play something louder and more shocking. The thing he came up with was always one of my favorite elements of the song. "Tragedy" is probably my favorite Bee Gees song.

I do think people underestimated just how much they kept working and writing for people. My God, "Islands In The Stream" alone sounds like a Bee Gees cover song, rather than something written for someone else. Their production aesthetic is strong.

"eye don’t really care so much what people say about me because it is a reflection of who they r."
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Reply #2 posted 12/22/20 4:14pm

RJOrion

as famous as they are for their disco era smash hits, i always thought their pre-disco classic "Main Course" was their best album... "Nights On Broadway", "Jive Talkin" , "Fanny"... i loved that whole album...more than the SNF Soundtrack even
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Reply #3 posted 12/22/20 4:50pm

PennyPurple

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Love the Bee Gee's will have to watch this.

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Reply #4 posted 12/23/20 8:41am

Dalia11

Love their music too, I will view the documentary.
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Reply #5 posted 12/23/20 9:19am

JayCrawford

Man... Anyone who lived through the 70s during the height of Bee Gees would remember how huge they were.

Saturday Night Fever is still the best soundtrack album to this day.
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Reply #6 posted 12/23/20 12:28pm

Dalia11

"Saturday Night Fever", one of my favorite Albums and Movies! Fabulous sound track songs! And John Travolta - great actor.
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Reply #7 posted 12/23/20 3:07pm

PennyPurple

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Watched it last night and loved it. I really miss them.


It's amazing to me how some can hear the clickety clack of wheels on pavement and write a song around the sound.


I even pulled my Bee Gee's CDs out this morning to listen to them some more.

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Reply #8 posted 12/24/20 10:01pm

onlyforaminute

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I'm watching this again. This was very good. Got to the heart. Even felt like reconnecting to a piece of myself.
Time keeps on slipping into the future...


This moment is all there is...
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Reply #9 posted 12/24/20 10:54pm

JayCrawford

Watching the Bee Gees documentary has made me realize that we're just getting so damn old. All of our icons of the golden ages of music throughout the 50s-80s are dying. Part of our childhood, teenage years and young adulthoods are going away.

Is a damn shame when you think about it.
[Edited 12/24/20 23:06pm]
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Reply #10 posted 12/25/20 4:50pm

lastdecember

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JayCrawford said:

Watching the Bee Gees documentary has made me realize that we're just getting so damn old. All of our icons of the golden ages of music throughout the 50s-80s are dying. Part of our childhood, teenage years and young adulthoods are going away. Is a damn shame when you think about it. [Edited 12/24/20 23:06pm]


I think also looking on at The Bee Gees and also Andy who would have been a fourth bee gee as was the plan a year prior to his death. That Maurice and Robin were so young when they passed, Maurice just 53 and Robin was 62 I believe and of course Andy was only 30, but The Bee Gees as a trio I am sure had many more albums in them after 2001 "This is where I came in"


"We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F
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Reply #11 posted 01/04/21 5:45pm

mrwiggles

Honestly, I never really respected nor thought much of the Bee Gees when they were popular in the mid to late 70's. I would hear it and just blew it off as some bugglegum fluff. Do understand, I am a hardcore funkateer mind-blown by some Parliafunkadelicmentation, especially at that era.

So glad I watched this. I will never doubt the song-writing prowess and musical talent of this band ever again.

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Reply #12 posted 01/04/21 9:29pm

SoulAlive

mrwiggles said:

Honestly, I never really respected nor thought much of the Bee Gees when they were popular in the mid to late 70's. I would hear it and just blew it off as some bugglegum fluff. Do understand, I am a hardcore funkateer mind-blown by some Parliafunkadelicmentation, especially at that era.



So glad I watched this. I will never doubt the song-writing prowess and musical talent of this band ever again.



yes,The Bees were the real deal....a truly talented group of brothers who wrote and produced some incredible songs.I recommend that you go back and listen to a few of their 70s album....’Main Course’ (1975) and ‘Children Of The World’ (1976) would be a good place to start.
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Reply #13 posted 01/08/21 6:27pm

alandail

Barry Gibb has a new album out this week Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers' Songbook, Vol. 1, new versions of Bee Gees songs, each one recorded with a different country artist. I've never been much of a country music fan, but somehow always liked country songs by the Bee Gees. A few of these were originally country songs, most werent.

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Reply #14 posted 01/09/21 12:32pm

jjhunsecker

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This is one of the best music documentaries I have ever seen. Worth catching even if you’re not a fan (though you’ll probably become one)
#SOCIETYDEFINESU
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Reply #15 posted 01/09/21 3:10pm

alandail

jjhunsecker said:

This is one of the best music documentaries I have ever seen. Worth catching even if you’re not a fan (though you’ll probably become one)

Yes, it was really well done. My only complaint is they should have made it 20-30 minutes longer to better cover their post 70s career. Such a shame that songs like

You Win Agian

One

Bodyguard

When He's Gone

Paying hte Price of Love

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Alone

Still Waters

Immortality

This is Where I Came In

Aren't better known.

Also, this story was just insane

Robert Stigwood to the Bee Gees: We need to release a song before movie, the better the song does, the more theaters they'll release the movie in, so go write the best love song ever.

Bee Gees come back with "How Deep is Your Love"

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Reply #16 posted 01/09/21 3:46pm

onlyforaminute

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Seen it 3 times. I didn't know of their earlier success. It was interesting to see that the timeline I knew them in was really a comeback period. And what a period. boxed I must confess I loved disco duck but yeah I see the issue now. Poor Rick Dees.
Time keeps on slipping into the future...


This moment is all there is...
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Reply #17 posted 01/12/21 2:52pm

mrwiggles

Am I the only one fascinated by the whole disco movement and its demise at that demolition event at that game? And how quickly the game changed. They were selling out on tour the night of the record blowup. Its like overnight, they were done.

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Reply #18 posted 01/12/21 9:22pm

SoulAlive

onlyforaminute said:

Seen it 3 times. I didn't know of their earlier success. It was interesting to see that the timeline I knew them in was really a comeback period. And what a period. boxed I must confess I loved disco duck but yeah I see the issue now. Poor Rick Dees.



yeah,many people don’t know that The Bee Gees were having hit singles in the 60s....long before their late-70s disco heyday.
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Reply #19 posted 01/13/21 3:55pm

lastdecember

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mrwiggles said:

Am I the only one fascinated by the whole disco movement and its demise at that demolition event at that game? And how quickly the game changed. They were selling out on tour the night of the record blowup. Its like overnight, they were done.


It actually was a unified movement to get rid of The Bee Gees this continued well into the 80's I can recall when they had what was considered their comeback LP called "ESP" and the single You Win Again was number one in eight countries and top ten and a dozen but in the USA peaking at number 75 this coming on the heels of them writing hits for many USA artists but the backlash was still going, it took them till 1989 to get back to the top 10 in America with the "One" another worldwide hit. But The Bee Gees were in the news sadly for brother Andy's death in 1988.


"We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F
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Reply #20 posted 01/13/21 5:24pm

PennyPurple

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lastdecember said:

mrwiggles said:

Am I the only one fascinated by the whole disco movement and its demise at that demolition event at that game? And how quickly the game changed. They were selling out on tour the night of the record blowup. Its like overnight, they were done.


It actually was a unified movement to get rid of The Bee Gees this continued well into the 80's I can recall when they had what was considered their comeback LP called "ESP" and the single You Win Again was number one in eight countries and top ten and a dozen but in the USA peaking at number 75 this coming on the heels of them writing hits for many USA artists but the backlash was still going, it took them till 1989 to get back to the top 10 in America with the "One" another worldwide hit. But The Bee Gees were in the news sadly for brother Andy's death in 1988.

Yes, that so called DJ, shock-jock Steve Dahl, did a lot of damage to them.


Insane is the only way to characterize the riot that ensued after Dahl blew up disco records in center field at Comiskey Park. “7,000 fans rushed onto the field, starting bonfires, tossing firecrackers into the stands, and destroying turf, batting cages, the pitcher’s mound, and, of course, records,” Alice Echols recounts in her book “Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture.” The White Sox had to cancel the second game of the doubleheader, which they lost by default.

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Reply #21 posted 01/16/21 7:02pm

SoulAlive

mrwiggles said:

Am I the only one fascinated by the whole disco movement and its demise at that demolition event at that game? And how quickly the game changed. They were selling out on tour the night of the record blowup. Its like overnight, they were done.

but contrary to popular belief,disco didn't really "die" after that event.In fact,disco never really died....they just simply stopped referring to it as "disco" biggrin some examples.....in early 1980,Diana Ross had the biggest hit album of her career with a Chic-produced disco album.In the summer of that same year,the disco song "Funkytown" by Lipps Inc. reached Number One on the charts.Donna Summer had several more huge disco hits that year ("Enough Is Enough","On the Radio",etc).All that happened is a song that would have been labeled "disco" a few years earlier was now being referred to as "dance music".

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Reply #22 posted 01/22/21 10:33am

lastdecember

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SoulAlive said:

mrwiggles said:

Am I the only one fascinated by the whole disco movement and its demise at that demolition event at that game? And how quickly the game changed. They were selling out on tour the night of the record blowup. Its like overnight, they were done.

but contrary to popular belief,disco didn't really "die" after that event.In fact,disco never really died....they just simply stopped referring to it as "disco" biggrin some examples.....in early 1980,Diana Ross had the biggest hit album of her career with a Chic-produced disco album.In the summer of that same year,the disco song "Funkytown" by Lipps Inc. reached Number One on the charts.Donna Summer had several more huge disco hits that year ("Enough Is Enough","On the Radio",etc).All that happened is a song that would have been labeled "disco" a few years earlier was now being referred to as "dance music".

I think the backlash was all on the Bee Gees, a lot of the others just disappeared because they were nothing more than a one song wonder and were producer creations. The Bee Gees at the time had already been going strong for a decade plus had huge hits then had a slump for two years and then went to Miami and were having hits prior to Saturday Night Fever, as Barry Gibb says we just were recording our next album when we got the call to do a song for a movie, NO ONE thought that movie would do anything.


"We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F
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Reply #23 posted 01/22/21 12:06pm

SoulAlive

lastdecember said:



SoulAlive said:




mrwiggles said:


Am I the only one fascinated by the whole disco movement and its demise at that demolition event at that game? And how quickly the game changed. They were selling out on tour the night of the record blowup. Its like overnight, they were done.




but contrary to popular belief,disco didn't really "die" after that event.In fact,disco never really died....they just simply stopped referring to it as "disco" biggrin some examples.....in early 1980,Diana Ross had the biggest hit album of her career with a Chic-produced disco album.In the summer of that same year,the disco song "Funkytown" by Lipps Inc. reached Number One on the charts.Donna Summer had several more huge disco hits that year ("Enough Is Enough","On the Radio",etc).All that happened is a song that would have been labeled "disco" a few years earlier was now being referred to as "dance music".




I think the backlash was all on the Bee Gees, a lot of the others just disappeared because they were nothing more than a one song wonder and were producer creations. The Bee Gees at the time had already been going strong for a decade plus had huge hits then had a slump for two years and then went to Miami and were having hits prior to Saturday Night Fever, as Barry Gibb says we just were recording our next album when we got the call to do a song for a movie, NO ONE thought that movie would do anything.




It’s interesting that radio was suddenly refusing to play them,and yet those same stations were playing songs that they wrote and produced for others.Barbra Streisand’s 1980 album ‘Guilty’ was a massive hit and Barry even revitalized Dionne Warwick’s career with the hit song “Heartbreaker” in ‘82.The 1984 song “Islands In The Stream” was a major hit for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.
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Reply #24 posted 01/22/21 12:22pm

Poplife88

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Great documentary and great band. I do remember the radio being saturarted with the SNF songs...I was pretty young but remember hearing them constantly. The backlash was inevitable. I never hated them, but dismissed that whole era for awhile afterwards. It wasn't until the late 80s when I realized how great those songs and the Bee Gees in general were and how incredibly talented and fab songwriters.

I live in Chicago and remember watching that White Sox game on channel 44 with my Dad, when disco demolition happend in the middle of a double header. My Dad was PISSED and was yelling at the screen that the damn hippies were destroying the field and cancelling the next game. Neither of us had any opinion about disco...just baseball.

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Reply #25 posted 01/22/21 12:46pm

SoulAlive

regarding the disco demolition night.....as Gloria Gaynor has said,"Why did they have these records in their collections in the first place?" lol If you don't like a certain style of music,you should just ignore it.

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Reply #26 posted 01/22/21 9:02pm

Farfunknugin

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Great doc, I’d put it up there with Runnin down a dream.
[Edited 1/22/21 21:04pm]
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Reply #27 posted 01/24/21 8:04am

lastdecember

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SoulAlive said:

lastdecember said:

I think the backlash was all on the Bee Gees, a lot of the others just disappeared because they were nothing more than a one song wonder and were producer creations. The Bee Gees at the time had already been going strong for a decade plus had huge hits then had a slump for two years and then went to Miami and were having hits prior to Saturday Night Fever, as Barry Gibb says we just were recording our next album when we got the call to do a song for a movie, NO ONE thought that movie would do anything.

It’s interesting that radio was suddenly refusing to play them,and yet those same stations were playing songs that they wrote and produced for others.Barbra Streisand’s 1980 album ‘Guilty’ was a massive hit and Barry even revitalized Dionne Warwick’s career with the hit song “Heartbreaker” in ‘82.The 1984 song “Islands In The Stream” was a major hit for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.


Yeah it was similar to the backlash on the Beatles when John said "they were bigger than Jesus" and that pissed off the south and sparked riots and burnings and death threats. It's funny how artists today have no clue about backlash I mean real backlash not cancel culture which is BS to an extent but backlash and targeted efforts to remove artists and some cases threaten their lives. The Bee Gees decided they would go back to the songwriting days when that was what they thought they would be, I mean "To love somebody " they wrote for Otis Redding not themselves, but he died before he could record it. I don't think the radio djs then and stations were smart enough to realize they were still playing bee gees songs just with new vocalists.


"We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F
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Reply #28 posted 01/30/21 6:10pm

paisleypark4

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It was okay. Much of it was talking about Saturday Night Fever instead of their albums collective history. They literally skimmed over their first releases and singles. What documentary does that? I had to do my own Wiki research just to find out what some of the albums were even called. Then they skipped the rest of their albums and releases after that.

Only getting a 3 out of 5 for me. Their history should be more in depth than that.

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Reply #29 posted 02/01/21 4:52am

lastdecember

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paisleypark4 said:

It was okay. Much of it was talking about Saturday Night Fever instead of their albums collective history. They literally skimmed over their first releases and singles. What documentary does that? I had to do my own Wiki research just to find out what some of the albums were even called. Then they skipped the rest of their albums and releases after that.

Only getting a 3 out of 5 for me. Their history should be more in depth than that.


have to disagree, they spend about ten to fifteen minutes on SNF and it's not till the hour mark they are even talking about it. True they do not mention album titles early on, but there are more detailed documentation done by this band on a few other documentaries including one that was done a few years back that was a re edit of the one they released for their final album "this is where I came in". What this doc did that none other did was talk to band members, which never was done, and I mean those other guys that played on the records with them, also some of the processes they used. It's a no win situation though it seems, if they do a documentary and it's super detailed people will say "Who cares about the Odessa album or the Size isn't everything album, or the ESP album etc..." this doc did what it had to do, and what it did was get people talking about them, I have heard from Rock heads who hated them because of Disco that did not even know these guys were from the 60's.


"We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F
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