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Idea by the Bee Gees (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Idea
  • Group name: the Bee Gees
  • Year: 1968
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Atco
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $24.98

Idea by the Bee Gees

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this Bee Gees record before, but it’s their second that I’m reviewing, besides Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track (1977). The first, conveniently enough, was called Bee Gees’ 1st (1967), and I thought it was not terrible.

What I expected

Pop rock with vocal harmonies.

What it was actually like

I did not like this record very much. While listening to it, I noticed that a lot of the songs had bells in them. Did they just discover the bells in the late 1960s?

In The Summer of His Years was a particularly terrible slow song, largely piano but also with flute and orchestral backing – of course, with bells tolling. When the Swallows Fly and I Started a Joke were similar, but not as bad, and there was more bad orchestral backing on Kilburn Towers and Swan Song.

Let There Be Love sounded like a Beatles reject from approximately 1965.

The title track Idea was lively, enjoyable and interesting, with lots of guitar, and definitely was not the stereotypical Bee Gees song. Kitty Can was also pretty good, except for these annoying whisper effects they had going in background throughout.

Indian Gin and Whisky Dry were in a psychedelic style, but not very appealing.

The most bizarre song on the record was I Have Decided to Join the Air Force. It left me scratching my head, wondering what it was that I just heard. Some of its lyrics were:

Mother, I’ve got to join the Air Force, you see
I’ve seen my friends and they all agree
That’s it’s better than joining the Army or going to sea

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

Bee Gees’ 1st (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • 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

Bee Gees' 1st

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.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track by Various Artists (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track
  • Group name: Various artists (including the Bee Gees, Tavares, K.C. & The Sunshine Band, Kool & The Gang)
  • Year: 1977
  • Number of discs: two discs / four sides
  • Collection: Selman

Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I think everyone knows of Saturday Night Fever the movie, knows that the Bee Gees did the music for it and knows that John Travolta was in it. I’ve never actually seen the movie or listened to its soundtrack, but assumed I would have heard most or all of the songs from it.

What I expected

Disco music, falsetto vocals, thumping synthetic beats.

What it was actually like

It wasn’t good.

I respect disco music as an art form and don’t think there’s anything defective about people who enjoy it, but as far as musical art forms go, at least within western pop music from the second half of the XX century, it’s difficult to think of a genre that I find less appealing aesthetically.

So I did not expect to enjoy this record, and listening to it, I slowly started to develop a sense for exactly what it is about disco that irritates me: it’s the preening. Yes, disco is repetitive and unoriginal, but the Ramones are repetitive and unoriginal, and I like them a lot; disco is artificial, but Baba O’Riley is artificial, and I like it a lot; disco inserts a brass section where it doesn’t seem to belong, but the Pietasters do that, and I like them a lot. So when I say “preening,” I mean that the entire raison d’etre of this music is to get people to strike a pose on a dance floor, and at every bar in every song on this entire record, I couldn’t help but imagine a crowded and sweaty room with flashing lights, filled with people who are all style and zero substance, showing off for each other in their outfits made of synthetic fabrics.

I wasn’t sure I would make it through all four sides, but I did. The closest I came to turning it off was Disco Inferno by The Trammps. K.C. & The Sunshine Band’s Boogie Shoes was the least bad song.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

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