Bee Gees - Living Eyes (1981) - €10,00

Living Eyes is the Bee Gees' sixteenth original album (fourteenth internationally), released in 1981. The Bee Gees turned away from the disco sound that was prominent on their work in the middle-to-late 1970s with this album. However, the album was not a commercial success, perhaps due to their being so strongly associated with disco.

In terms of hit singles and precise musical vision, it would have been difficult for anyone to have to follow-up the brilliant Spirits Having Flown album, but these industry veterans created a real gem in Living Eyes which seems to have gotten lost in the maze that is their deep catalog. 

The title track is almost up there with "Spirits Having Flown," which is significant praise, and the song "Paradise" follows suit, pretty and passionate. "Don't Fall in Love With Me" has all three Bee Gees brothers contributing to this ballad with their trademark highly creative hooks. The one downer, unbelievable as it seems, is the hit single "He's a Liar." It just doesn't make it -- odd vocals on a theme which goes nowhere. 

Nicking the Top 30 in October of 1981, well after "Love You Inside Out," their final (and questionable) number one hit, the tune disrupts their staggering array of wonderful singles. To stay off the charts for two and a half years might have been fallout from the Sgt Pepper film debacle; though the successful Spirits Having Flown came after that non-epic, it all added up to massive overexposure. The victim of too much airplay (or too much heaven) was this very decent and highly listenable album. "I Still Love You" has Robin Gibb in classic Bee Gees form with lush arrangements and production. 

There is even additional information included on the inner sleeve regarding the consoles used in recording and the wardrobe person, as well as photos of co-producers Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson. 

The album exhibits the opulence enjoyed by the brothers on the front, back cover, and inside gatefold -- regal photos which are enhanced by the fact that the boys had the chops to back it up. "Wildflower," not the 1973 hit by Skylark but a brilliant original with folky overtones, really should have been the single. How it didn't hit for the Bee Gees or the popular acts they were working with -- Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton in 1982 and Dionne Warwick in 1983 -- is evidence of the richness of their songbook. Barry Gibbs' lead on "Nothing Could Be Good" is so perfectly adult contemporary, a song written by Galuten and the three brothers, it is just stunning that they did nothing with it and that this beautiful work is so forgotten. 

A song from the Staying Alive film soundtrack went Top 25 in 1983, and in 1989 they broke the Top Ten with "One," but there is no reason for such time in between hits. "Cryin' Every Day" has it, another brilliant hook accompanied by dramatic production; the title track has it; and Barry Gibbs' ethereal and dreamy conclusion to this disc, "Be Who You Are," has it. A strong work by a classic group which is worth hearing again. Truly the weakest track is the hit single "He's a Liar," which must have contributed to this album getting lost in the shuffle.

Side A

A1. Living Eyes - 4:20

A2. He’s a Liar - 4:05

A3. Paradise - 4:21

A4. Don’t Fall In Love With Me - 4:57

A5. Soldiers - 4:28

Side B

B1. I Still Love You - 4:27

B2. Wildflower - 4:26

B3. Nothing Could Be Good - 4:13

B4. Cryin’ Everyday - 4:05

B5. Be Who You Are - 6:42

Notes

Release:  1981

Format:  LP (Gatefold)

Genre:  Pop

Label:  RSO Records

Catalog#  2394301

Vinyl:  VG

Cover:  VG

Prijs: €10,00

Bee Gees - E.S.P. (LP)

Side A
A1.  E.S.P. (5:35)
A2.  You Win Again (4:01)
A3.  Live or Die (Hold Me Like a Child) (4:42)
A4.  Giving up the Ghost (4:26)
A5.  The Longest Night (5:47)

Side B
B1.  This is Your Life (4:53)
B2.  Angela (4:56)
B3.  Overnight (4:21)
B4.  Crazy for Your Love (4:43)
B5.  Backtafunk (4:23)
B6.  E.S.P. (Vocal Reprise) (0:30)

Release: 1987
Label:  Warner Bros. Records
Catalog#  925541-1

order / bestellen € 10,00

Bee Gees - Main Course (1975)

Artist:  Bee Gees
Title:  Main Course
Release:  1975
Format:  LP
Label:  RSO Records
Catalog#  2479139

“Main Course” is the 12th album released by the Bee Gees in 1975 for the RSO label, under its distribution deal with Robert Stigwood. This album marked a change for the Bee Gees as it was their first album to include disco influenced songs, and it created the model for their output through the rest of the 1970s. “Main Course” was the first album to feature keyboardist Blue Weaver.
The group’s earlier LPs, steeped in a dense romantic balladry, were beautifully crafted but too serious for any but hardcore fans. “Main Course” had a few ballads, such as “Songbird” and “Country Lanes,” but the writing was simpler, and the rest of it was made up of catchy dance tunes (heavily influenced by the Philadelphia-based soul music of the period), in which the beat and the texture of the voices and instruments took precedence over the words. The combination proved irresistible, and “Main Course” driven by the singles “Jive Talkin’,” “Nights on Broadway,” and “Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)” attracted millions of new listeners. It also repelled fans of the group’s earlier style, which was a bit ironic. Barry Gibb’s falsetto voice, introduced on this album, was startling at first, and became an object of ridicule in later years, but the slow break on “Nights on Broadway” and songs like “Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)” and “Baby As You Turn Away” were as exquisitely sung as “Lonely Days” or “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” and they had the same sense of romantic drama, leavened by a layer of sheer fun; one had less of a sense that the singer was dealing with the love of a lifetime, so much as a conquest for the evening, which was in keeping with the sexual mores of the mid-’70s. And the spirit of fun was no accident producer Arif Mardin, seeking to rescue the group’s stagnating career, had gotten the Bee Gees to turn their talents in a musical direction that they’d always loved but never embraced. Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb had been fascinated by R&B and soul for years. Not only didn’t they seem ridiculous, but they took to it as easily as they’d absorbed the Beatles’ harmony-based rock sounds in the late ’60s.
It was a liberating experience for the entire group Blue Weaver, newly added to the lineup with an array of electronic keyboards and ideas that ended up shaping lots of the songs here; Alan Kendall, playing in a funky guitar style; and drummer Dennis Byron, playing more complicated patterns than he’d been asked to in years, were also delighted with the new direction, and they constituted the instrumental core of the band for the next six years. Years later, “Main Course” holds up as well as anything the group ever did, and with killer album cuts like “Wind of Change” (featuring a superb Joe Farrell tenor sax solo) and “Edge of the Universe” all over it, demands as much attention as any hits compilation by the group.


Side one
1.  Nights on Broadway  (4:31)
2.  Jive Talkin’  (3:43)
3.  Wind of Change  (4:54)
4.  Songbird  (3:35)
5.  Fanny (Be Tender with My Love)  (4:02)

Side two
1.  All This Making Love  (3:03)
2.  Country Lanes  (3:29)
3.  Come On Over  (3:26)
4.  Edge of the Universe  (5:21)
5.  Baby As You Turn Away  (4:23)

available at: http://www.ad-vinylrecords.com