
The elephant in the discotheque: the Bee Gees (2014) - Thevet
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/07/14/islands-in-the-stream/
======
tomcam
Finally, an overview of the Bee Gees career that grasps the scope of their
achievements while both understanding their music and remaining clear-eyed
about their failures. Critics of the time tore them apart, seldom offering any
worthwhile feedback at all, much less serious criticism.

Not a big fan of armchair psychoanalysis normally but everything rings true to
me. The notion of the group as something akin to aliens due to their isolated
early years on the Isle of Man causes a lot of pieces of the puzzle to fall in
place for me. We forget how truly isolated a place like the Isle of Man could
be in postwar Britain.

Missing is an appreciation of their outrageously gifted rhythm section, with
Blue Weaver on keys, Dennis Byron on drums, and, apparently, Maurice on bass.
The bass parts are so insanely in the pocket that it's a little hard for me to
accept that it was Maurice, though he played many instruments well. Could it
be there was an uncredited studio bassist playing these parts? I've never
heard a peep to contrary and have always hoped it was Maurice.

There was talk of their much younger brother Andy joining the group. He had a
few hits in the mid to late 70s written by Barry but died of a drug overdose.
before anything could come of it. The elder brothers' harmony style was
complete and it is a little hard to imagine how he would have fit in.

~~~
pjc50
The Isle of Man isn't _that_ isolated, it's just not quite within easy day
trip range of London, Manchester, Liverpool or Glasgow, the cities with the
big, important music scenes.

The Scottish islands are much more isolated.

~~~
xioxox
It's four hours by ferry, or 2 hours 45 by fast catamaran ferry, from
Liverpool. It's pretty close. It used to be a big tourist destination in the
Victorian age when there weren't cheap flights.

~~~
teh_klev
It's been for many, many years and still is a mecca for motor cycle road
racers:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Man_TT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Man_TT)

------
dang
This is a surprisingly good piece of music writing. I thought it had appeared
on HN before but maybe not. A commenter on the page wittily summarizes it as
"geniuses with bad taste," but the author is more empathetic than that. He
manages to explain the Bee Gees in a way I wouldn't have thought possible. The
contradiction he finds in their music—emotional depth plus standoffishness,
sadness without warmth—is an insight that's obvious when you hear it, but not
before.

In an amusing conceit, he pretty much just skips over their mega period. Fine
in my book; the melancholic songs he emphasizes are my favorites too. These
songs have a long history of attracting great singers, who could express what
was held back in the originals. Two favorites from the early 70s:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfbHScyol1k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfbHScyol1k)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBCbxLreo1I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBCbxLreo1I)

For me the performance that best displays what the article is talking
about—"There was an emotional depth to their songs that gave them a rare
advantage over the Beatles"—is this one, by Phil Seymour (a minor teen idol of
the late 70s), when he was dying:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh-77186F7E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh-77186F7E)

It's haunting and gets me every time, despite a mediocre arrangement that is
oblivious to what it's in the presence of. I believe it is the last recording
he made.

------
caractacus
I highly recommend the book this is taken from: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! The Story of
Pop Music by Bob Stanley.

Bob Stanley was a music journalist who founded the beautiful group St Etienne.
There is no one I can think of better qualified to talk about pop and dance
music and their effect on the soul and society.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I was reading the other comments and really looking forward to reading the
article, but after reading your comment I realise I've actually already read
it.

I agree, great book if you're interested in pop music. Highly recommended.

------
wodenokoto
I think the discourse in this article is quite confusing.

The author starts and ends with saying that these are sheltered people who had
no idea about what was in, or popular. Yet he describes a band that had been
producing top-10 and 20 hits and partying with the Beatles for nearly a decade
before their runaway success.

~~~
singingfish
I just listened to the first half of the beejees greatest hist. I found that
quite confusing too. By way of anditode, we put some Fall Out Boy on, some of
Nirvana's first album and then the [Crooked Fiddle
band]([http://www.crookedfiddleband.com/](http://www.crookedfiddleband.com/)).

------
davidgerard
This is great. It's a chapter from Bob Stanley's _Yeah Yeah Yeah_ , a
comprehensive history of pop music that I'm reading right now. Anyone with too
many vinyl records needs to get a copy and read it.

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bitwize
"Led Zeppelin didn't write tunes that everybody liked. They left that to the
Bee Gees."

It turns out that that is hard to do well and requires a certain brilliance
and finesse. Nearly everyone in the anglosphere can recognize at least one of
their songs even 35-40 years on; Zeppelin doesn't have that kind of claim.
Getting to that level requires a certain propensity to hack the human psyche,
employing hooks, chord structures, melodies and lyrics that are sure to get
attention and remain in memory.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
Really? everyone in the anglosphere won't recognize Stairway to Heaven? or
even Whole Lotta Love?

~~~
bitwize
I think that far fewer people would recognize "Stairway" than would recognize,
say, "Stayin' Alive". My parents, for instance, would recognize the latter but
if you played "Stairway" for them -- puzzled looks.

------
olivermarks
I always felt - and still do - that the BG's were music business puppets and
their huge success in the the disco era was part of a media package put
together based on Nik Cohen's book about London nightlife 'saturday night
fever'. Rewritten as a NY area filmscript about white italians, the soundtrack
by the BG's was brilliantly cross marketed to whitewash and commercialize the
real underground club dance music of the era.

------
jacquesm
For another look at the Bee Gees: Winds of Change.

I had a friend who was an all-out Bee Gees fan (he even tried to look like
them) who played that song for me and it made me re-consider the rest of their
work.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haknxM7FGfk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haknxM7FGfk)

------
tempodox
While they're not representative for my taste in music, I share the judgement
that _They wrote a dozen of the finest songs of the twentieth century._

In my ears, they've earned a place in musical history. For how long will be
our grandchildren's decision.

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ribs
A very good read. Odd that there's no mention of Andy or of ABBA.

~~~
davidgerard
The book has an excellent chapter on ABBA.

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makeitsuckless
Oh, how I hated the Bee Gees back in the day. I was too young, too sheltered
and probably too much of a coward to become a punk rocker, but I shared the
sentiment.

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dreamfactory2
Why is he saying they defined disco? Disco was a black gay culture and the Bee
Gees were a pop band who appropriated and pretty much ruined it.

~~~
triangleman
And yet, without its ruining, we wouldn't have had house music, the forefather
of today's EDM.

[http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/April-2014/RIP-
Frankie-K...](http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/April-2014/RIP-Frankie-
Knuckles-Who-Took-Back-Music-From-the-Disco-Demolition-Forces-of-Darkness/)

~~~
dreamfactory2
Bit of a stretch to say that house only came about because of sucky disco-
tinged pop music. Proper disco has always been a mainstay of house sets e.g.
this kind of stuff is still played at underground parties to this day
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtO13NZqE1Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtO13NZqE1Y),
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B85dYk77V-o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B85dYk77V-o),
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG-
IHgNo5bs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG-IHgNo5bs) (probably the original
house blueprint), or just see anything by Larry Levan.

