Search/Recent Changes
DBTropes
...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

The Bee Gees (Music)

 The Bee Gees (Music)
label
 The Bee Gees (Music)
 The Bee Gees (Music)
page
 TheBeeGees
 The Bee Gees (Music)
comment
 The Bee Gees were a music group consisting of brothers Maurice, Barry, and Robin Gibb. They first formed in 1958, rising to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and were especially popular in the disco era of the mid-to-late 1970s.The Bee Gees name is commonly believed to be short for Brothers Gibb, though it's actually a reference to Australian DJ Bill Gates (no, not that Bill Gates) and promoter Bill Goode, two men who played key roles in launching the group's career. The Bee Gees for most of their history have consisted of twin brothers Robin and Maurice Gibb and older brother Barry. (Youngest brother Andy is commonly believed to have been a member of the Bee Gees, but he never was. However, they were planning on adding him in the '80s, but his death put a stop to that.) Born on the Isle of Man to English parents, the brothers were living in Australia when they began their musical careers, with their first documented TV appearance airing in 1960 and their first released single, the Lonnie Donegan-esque skiffle song "The Battle of the Blue and the Grey", appearing in 1963. Initially performing an amalgam of covers (typically of works by Donegan and The Beatles) and self-written songs, the group eventually released two LPs of original material, the more Merseybeat-influenced The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs and the more psychedelia-tinged Spicks and Specks, in the mid-'60s, neither of which sold prolifically. Frustrated by their relative lack of success, the brothers returned to England in 1967 and were snapped up by producer and manager Robert Stigwood, who would prove a major influence on their career until the turn of The '80s. Employing a Genre Roulette of then-popular songwriting styles (aided by Stigwood's more elaborate production), the Bee Gees rapidly became one of the most prominent harmonic pop-rock groups globally, mainly characterized during this period by their three-part harmonies led by Robin's vibrato. Their first international hit was "New York Mining Disaster 1941" (1967); other hits from this period include "To Love Somebody", "Holiday", "I Started a Joke" and "Massachusetts" (the last of these being their first UK #1 hit). These songs and several others today are staples on oldies stations. The band at this point actually consisted of five members. In addition to the Gibb brothers, the group also included guitarist Vince Melouney and drummer Colin Peterson.The band's first three internationally-released albums, Bee Gees' 1st, Horizontal, and Idea, were all popular successes, amalgamating Beatles-esque psychedelic pop and baroque pop with singer-songwriter-esque balladry. However, tensions began to boil during the recording of the group's next album, Odessa, an ambitious double Concept Album. Though the album today is considered one of the finest of their early period, it was a cause of great strife for the band. Robin began to feel that the label was favoring Barry's songs when it came to choosing singles and finally left the band to pursue a solo career. Peterson was fired during sessions for their next album, and with Melouney having left previously to pursue a different musical direction, the Bee Gees at this point were a duo consisting of just Barry and Maurice. They soldiered on with the ambitious Cucumber Castle, a Made-for-TV Movie, but the film and accompanying album both flopped. With the group in a state of chaos at this point, it was seemingly the end of The Bee Gees.Then in late 1970, Barry and Maurice (accelerated by a then-desperate Stigwood, who was attempting to rebound from his failed merger with Apple Music at the time) managed to patch up their rift with Robin. The three decided to reunite and give the Bee Gees another try, complete with a more ballad-oriented singer-songwriter aesthetic. This revival rapidly yielded two of the group's biggest hits, "Lonely Days" and "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart", the latter providing them with their first US #1 hit. After that, however, their commercial fortunes dropped sharply, as their next album sold noticeably lower numbers. Subsequently, the Gibb brothers embarked on an attempted revamp into a country-rock group with Life in a Tin Can in 1973, which dissolved their commercial fortunes even further. Lacking faith in the group's direction, Stigwood discarded an entire fully-recorded album in the vein of Tin Can and sent them to the USA to collaborate with notable R&B producer Arif Mardin. An initial attempt to shed their overreliance on the slow, melancholic ballads that had dominated their output since 1970, the R&B-influenced 1974 album Mr. Natural, while not a major seller, nonetheless featured clearer, more atmospheric production courtesy of Mardin and a noticeable uptick in the structure and energy of the group's songwriting, with tracks such as the hard-edged funk rock of "Heavy Breathing" and the Elton John-esque "Dogs" (notable as the first released appearance of the group's trademark falsetto, sung faintly during the pre-chorus bridge) foreshadowing their artistic resurgence.The following year, the Gibbs finally saw commercial success again with their next album, the heavily funk-flavored Main Course, also produced by Mardin. In addition to providing them with their first number one hit in four years, "Jive Talkin'", the album also more prominently featured (in an attempt to homage R&B groups such as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) falsetto vocals courtesy of Barry, conspicuously appearing on tracks such as "Fanny Be Tender (With My Love)" and the hit "Nights on Broadway". When it came time to produce their next album, Mardin was not available, so the band began producing themselves, aided by Abhy Galuten and engineer Karl Richardson. The resulting album, Children of the World was an even more major hit, spawning another number one single, "You Should Be Dancing", and marking both the group's outright transition into disco stylistically and the point at which Barry's falsetto became the defining feature of the group's sound.It was then that Robert Stigwood approached the Gibbs about contributing songs to the soundtrack of a new motion picture that was being produced. The project, which would focus on the disco scene, excited the Gibbs, and they happily agreed. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack would quickly catapult the band to the peak of its popularity, far more than they had been in their pre-disco days. Because of the incredible success of this album — for a time, it was the biggest-selling album in history until that role was taken by Michael Jackson's Thriller six years later — the Bee Gees, fairly or not, became the poster boys of the disco era. Despite this, disco songs were hardly the Bee Gees' only hits, even in this era; non-disco ballads like "How Deep Is Your Love" and "Too Much Heaven" were just as big hits as "Stayin' Alive", "Tragedy", "Jive Talkin'", and "Night Fever". Their last big hit of the 1970s, "Love You Inside Out", was more of an R&B song than full-on disco. Whatever the general vocal ranges of the songs were, though, one thing that remained from their harmonic rock period was their tight vocal harmonies, although this time with Barry Gibb taking more of a lead role.The Bee Gees starred in the 1978 film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a pastiche based on The Beatles' music, notably the original titular album with songs from Abbey Road. Peter Frampton, Alice Cooper, Steve Martin, Aerosmith, and George Burns helped comprise the all-star lead cast. Even though it flopped at the box office, it still manages to enjoy quite a cult following in spite of its kitschiness, being praised for its renditions of the Beatles' music, and Steve Martin's comical rendition of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" can be considered So Bad, It's Good as well as the movie itself.As the 1970s became the 1980s, the group updated its sound once more to stay contemporary, shifting from straight disco to R&B-based pop. However, the US continued to regard them as relics of the disco era, and with the backlash against disco running strong, the group would find only occasional success in the studio from here on out — most notably the 1989 single "One" (their last U.S. Top 10 hit) and the 1997 album Still Waters (which sold over 4 million copies in the States, and spawned their last top 40 hits, "Alone" in the summer of 1997 and the title track in January 1998). They remained popular in the UK, though, having a massive 1987 Number One single (twenty years after their first) in the shape of thumping echo-chamber romp "You Win Again", and top 5 success into the '90s with "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and "Alone". They also experienced continued popularity 'behind the scenes' writing songs for other people, even in the US; songs they wrote for others include worldwide hits like Barbra Streisand's "Woman in Love", Dionne Warwick's "Heartbreaker", Diana Ross' "Chain Reaction" and "Islands in the Stream" by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.In 1997, with Barry struggling with arthritis and back pain, the group played a show titled One Night Only, intending for it to be their last. Response to the show was so overwhelmingly positive, however, that Barry decided to soldier on with one last full-scale tour despite the pain. That same year saw them inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, who himself knew a thing or two about vocal harmonies, performed the induction.2003 saw the temporary end of The Bee Gees, with Maurice's sudden death in January at the age of 53 of a heart attack while awaiting emergency surgery for a twisted intestine. After that, Barry and Robin performed off-and-on under the Bee Gees name, including appearances on Dancing with the Stars and Strictly Come Dancing in late 2009. In May 2012, Robin passed away following a long battle with cancer, leaving Barry as the only surviving member and effectively marking the end of the group.Barry Gibb has since continued to tour and record as a solo artist, releasing two solo albums since the end of the group and performing a well-received "Legend" set at the 2017 Glastonbury Festival.Discography: The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs (1965) (Australia only) Spicks and Specks (1966) (Australia only) Bee Gees' 1st (1967) Turn Around, Look At Us (1967) (Australia only - compiled without the Gibbs' consent) Horizontal (1968) Idea (1968) Odessa (1969) Cucumber Castle (1970) Inception/Nostalgia (1970) (Australian-era outtakes - compiled without the Gibbs' consent) 2 Years On (1970) Trafalgar (1971) To Whom It May Concern (1972) Life in a Tin Can (1973) A Kick In The Head Is Worth Eight In The Pants (1973) (unreleased) Mr. Natural (1974) Main Course (1975) Children of the World (1976) Saturday Night Fever (1977) (soundtrack, contains four new Bee Gees songs and two previous released ones) Spirits Having Flown (1979) Living Eyes (1981) Staying Alive (1983) (soundtrack, contains five new Bee Gees songs) E.S.P. (1987) One (1989) High Civilization (1991) Size Isn't Everything (1993) Love Songs (1995) (unreleased, not to be confused with their 2005 ballad-specific Greatest Hits Album of the same name) Still Waters (1997) This Is Where I Came In (2001)
 The Bee Gees (Music)
fetched
 2024-04-06T17:46:42Z
 The Bee Gees (Music)
parsed
 2024-04-06T17:46:42Z
 The Bee Gees (Music)
processingComment
 Page marked to be ignored, dropping links (40).
 The Bee Gees (Music)
isPartOf
 DBTropes

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 MelodySWALK
seeAlso
 The Bee Gees (Music)
 Lets Stay Together (Music)
seeAlso
 The Bee Gees (Music)