The Friday Canon: BEE GEES

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

It's Barry, Maurice and Robin! The helium-filled disco trio had 31 UK Top 40 hits - you get to pick your favourite TEN. Do a little dance!

[Poll #1003654]
Genesis/Collins/Gabriel: (link)
1. Solsbury Hill
2. Sledgehammer
3. In The Air Tonight
4. Easy Lover [w/ Philip Bailey]
5. Don't Give Up [ft Kate Bush]
6. Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)
=7. Games Without Frontiers
=7. Invisible Touch
=7. Sussudio
10. Land Of Confusion

Comments

PROPOSAL

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

You Win Again is one of the greatest comebacks in all pop.

Also: were Nights on Broadway and I Started a Joke not hits? Wow...

You Win Again

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

You'd like it if you knew it, methinks:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OFU2elYs5yw

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

It's also worth remembering that while these men were the genius behind Chain Reaction, Woman In Love and Islands in the Stream, they are legendarily tw@ttish:

Re: PROPOSAL

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

EVERYBODY MUST TICK YOU WIN AGAIN!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Where is 'Emotions'??? The one Destiny's Child covered?

I don't like any Bee Gees originals, but I do like a lot of covers of them.

I'm delighted to discover

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

that I only know 9 of these, and I ticked 7 of them, although only 'You Win Again' and 'You Should Be Dancing' really merited the ticks.

Emotion (no s)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

A bit of googling reveals that it was someone called Samantha Sang who performed the original and had a hit with it. Apparently, the Bee Gees didn't record the song themselves until 2001! Can this be true?

More Bee Gees canon (ie written by but not actually performed by Bee Gees)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

1. Yvonne Elliman - "If I Can't Have You"
2. Babs Streisand and Barry Gibb - "Guilty"

Any others?

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

This is one of the very few canons where I actually wanted to tick more than my allotment (I wanted to tick 11, "I've Got to Get a Message to You" LOSES). Anyways, great songwriters. They have a nice stable of songs performed by other artists too. Tho Bee Gees nights on American Idol are notoriously awful (there have been 2).

Re: More Bee Gees canon (ie written by but not actually performed by Bee Gees)

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

The ones I mentioned above, and Dionne Warwick's Heartbreaker was theirs. Also, the title song of Grease as sung by Frankie Valli!

Re: More Bee Gees canon (ie written by but not actually performed by Bee Gees)

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

CHAIN REACTION!!!

[jauntyemma.livejournal.com]

I have always had a soft spot for More than a Woman but I guess it was never a single :( never mind, altogether now: 'say you'll always be my baby, we can make it shine, we can take forever just a minute at a time la la la'

Re: More Bee Gees canon (ie written by but not actually performed by Bee Gees)

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

Off the top of my head, "Woman in Love"

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Another one everybody thinks of as a hit for the Bee Gees, but was in fact given to someone else. In this case: Tavares.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm concerned, pop music simply does not get any better than "Tragedy" - that song has absolutely everything, it is probably the best single of the 1970s, and damned if the Steps cover version isn't one of the best singles of the 90s too. AAAAAAAAAAAAA! TRAGEDY! etc. GENIUS.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Also WTF, people do you not know "Love You Inside Out"? It is likewise AMAZING! (Feist's version is probably a touch better, but still, AMAZING)

[jauntyemma.livejournal.com]

rly? I'm sure it's them on the soundtrack album? oh well, still a great tune :)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The Steps version is brilliant. Especially the video (all Steps videos are miniature masterpieces and this one is no different), where they are NOT ALLOWED to move their hands until they get to the wedding reception and all manner of hand-jive hell breaks loose.

The Bee Gee's contribution to modern music is a marvellous one and I would induct them into any Hall Of Fame I happened to be in charge of.

Median peak

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I think this must be the most chronologically central tick distribution of any canon artist so far!

How deep is your voice?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The Take That version of HDIYL? really doesn't cut it compared to the original (which I had never heard before Gary & co's treatment of it). Although I have probably said the exact opposite in the comments on the TT canon. My fickle memory there, marvellous.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Most key changes in one song ever!

Terrible video though.

[koganbot]

My friend Roni and I used to go to a bar in her neighborhood specifically because it had "Tragedy" on the jukebox.

Re: Median peak

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

The tick profile forms the shape of an MANg with 1x beer gut!

To Love Nobody

[koganbot]

How was "To Love Somebody" not a hit in Britain? Was it never a single?

Personally think that every song on Bee Gees 1st (which may have been their third or fourth if you count England and Australia, but we Americans tend to be very lax about counting England and Australia) is wonderful.

Also, and this I will have trouble explaining, but I should have put "I Can't See Nobody" and "To Love Somebody" on my yesterday's list of personal turning points. I did not like those two songs originally because they sounded too much like Motown, which I also did not like (believe it or not but Motown sounded leaden and maudlin to my undiscerning ears and I got impatient whenever the 4 Tops or Supremes came on the radio), but then something shifted where all of a sudden those two Bee Gees songs sounded intense and heartrending, and at some point I was liking the Supremes and the 4 Tops as well - though somehow I never realized that the Bee Gees had propelled this shift until typing up this post right now!

I loved "New York Mining Disaster" right away, because it was folk music. I believed at the time that the greatest recording in the modern world was the Brothers Four's version of "Spring Hill Mine Disaster."

WBZ in Boston embraced "New York Mining Disaster" right away, even reported the rumor that it was the Beatles recording under a different name (which is ridiculous, the Bee Gees' voices were different, way more quaveringly soulful even on that one - hey, just because someone's using ringing harmonies doesn't make them the Beatles); the song leapt to number one in Boston in one week; I've always considered that "Massachusetts" was meant as a thank-you and also as an attempt to consolidate the Boston market. But it's a terrible song. The Bee Gees got so wanky so fast. And then they got rhythm, and turned it around. Turned the beat around.

Re: More Bee Gees canon (ie written by but not actually performed by Bee Gees)

[koganbot]

Andy Gibb "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" (written by Barry)

To Love Nina instead

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Everyhit sa the Bee Gees' version of "To Love Somebody" only got to #50, but Nina Simone went Top 5 with a cover version in 1969.

whoa picture

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Casting my eyes carelessly over my flist I thought the canon was The Supremes or something.

I have very little to say on the Bee Gees. They bore me a lot.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

My favourite songs of theirs are two that aren't in the list, and I've never heard the Bee Gees' versions of them. Frank mentioned To Love Somebody (my favourite version is by the Mirettes), but I wrote a lengthy piece on Freaky Trigger a few years ago about Al Green's magnificent cover of How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?

"Boogie Child"!

[mackromackro.livejournal.com]

This was not a single? This was the first Bee Gees song I ever heard, when I was 4 or 5 years old. It's fantastic.

Incidentally, this would have been a candidate for the Sex POP OPEN on my part.. maybe.