Bee Gees’ 1st (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: Bee Gees’ 1st

Group name: Bee Gees

Year: 1967

Number of discs: one

Label: Atco

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Distinguishing characteristics:

“Gess” written on top right of album front, indicating that my father owned it

“GESSNER” written on top right of album back, indicating that my father owned it

Buy it on Amazon: $17.14

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, or indeed any Bee Gees record, though I am familiar with them, and they came up on this site ten months ago when I reviewed Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track (1977). Not surprisingly, I was not a fan.

What I expected

Of course, when I think of the Bee Gees, I think of disco, but this record is from 1967, which is way too early for disco. It’s also got some wholesome, record company-approved psychedelia on the cover. I don’t really know what to expect.

What it was actually like

From the first few notes of the first song, Turn of the Century, I knew exactly what this record was not – disco – and exactly what it was – a cheap knockoff of Sgt. Pepper. That should not, of course, have been possible, since the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper in late May 1967 and the Bee Gees must already have been recording 1st before then, but it sure sounded awfully like a moderately talented group trying to to mimic the Beatles from exactly that era, at every single step.

To what extent did this record copy the Beatles? It even managed, somehow, to include some of Faul’s granny shit, the extremely Oompa Loompa song Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy of Arts.

I may have recognized To Love Somebody, a pretty bad song with totally unnecessary orchestral backing.

The only song that did not sound entirely like a Beatles impersonation was Please Read Me, which sounded at parts like a Beach Boys impersonation.