Grossest Error in all Disco websites, compilations etc:The forgetting of the Bee Gees

[UltimateBeeGeesFan]

As disco is one of my favorite types of music of all time, the Bee Gees are, and always will Bee my favorite band of all time because of their great songs, especially their definitive songs of disco, such as Stayin' Alive, Night Fever, You Should Be Dancing, More Than A Woman, How Deep is Your Love, You Stepped Into my Life, and many, many more. They, to me will always symbolize the meaning of disco, even though they themselves never thought of themselves specifically as a disco act even during the Fever period. Truth is, they were disco; everybody else wanted to be like them in terms of discoishness, success, popularity etc. Many of the disco compilations I have come across are not respecting the definitive band of disco, the Bee Gees. It's a shame to anyone who call themselves a disco fan, to not count the Bee Gees at the top. They made disco what is was with their Saturday Night Fever songs, during the Fever era, the true era of disco, the late 1970's-roughly 1976-through the end of 1979. Everything after was disco sadly waning, in America that it is.
If this website or any other wants to be truly recognizing of the best of disco, they will list the Bee Gees as the top disco band of all time.
Also, on side note, I could not find a Polish disco album/band titled "Aura", which has a cover of Stayin Alive in Polish, of all languages! That's how respected the Bee Gees were in the time of disco! And why did I not see Boney M listed? They were a great non-American disco band; or Dshingis Khan, the German late disco band?
But I have to say, I was glad Giorgio Moroder was on the 700 list. To add, I really, in addition to Giorgio Moroder, I hope I find the Three Degrees, who Giorigio Moroder helped out on their late 70's albums, specifically in the area of synthesizersm his area of expertise, as he was the pioneer of synth in the 70's. I was glad someone brought up Isaac Hayes' song Disco Connection, which came out in the early 70's long before disco had become what it would in America. And of course Abba is another band that was disco; probably in the top 5 or 7 greatest of disco. Please do your homework disco.com and do the research which will show to you that the Bee Gees were the biggest in disco in the late 1970's.

[Teddybear]

Welcome to the Forum!

I agree: they are one of my all-time any-genre favourites, but I feel Saturday Night Fever has become a kind of shame for some people (even for the connoisseurs). Overexposure? Anyway, you can find their songs better ranked in the Top 500 Disco Charts, made several years ago by members of this # 1 Forum. Check positions 46, 51, 60: Top 500 Disco Songs Chart (Second Revised Edition 2002) #1-99 DiscoMusic.com.

I think the same undervalue occurs with Eurodisco, I mean from an American standpoint. I'm a Hot Disco Latin Lover and I think we latinos are more open-minded in terms of accepting our feelings, in spite of changing trends and fashions.

The same can be said of non-disco artists with disco songs. (What a grossness :icon_confused:.) Like the delicious Tonight's The Night by Betty Wright and Andy Gibb's Shadow Dancing.




By the way, some months ago, after one hundred years of solitude, I rediscovered Spirits Having Flown (re-issued in 2006), and I literally cried in a mixture of joy, lost and refound memories and excitement. How could have I forgotten this album so many years? Hopefully, some will find themselves in the same position in the future.

[Videoskooter]

I stated this many times and I'm gonna repeat this here again: the Bee Gees are one of the most underrated groups here on the board! I always defended them but a lot of members won't even consider them as Disco and it's mostly the American and British members who are negative about 'em.

Like Teddy says, they usually bash Eurodisco too.

The Bee Gees have written so many great songs that it simply is a shame that they sometimes are so neglected here! Maybe we Europeans are much more open minded (and no, the Brits are not Europeans )

We wanna have fun on the dancefloor and if a groove puts a smile on our face, we party. We don't look around and ask ourselves if the song in question is cool or worthy or don't analyse it for a few months before a congregation of Disco wisemen gives it the stamp of approval.

We just go for it and don't care. Remember: we didn't have the Disco Sucks backlash BITD, we kept dancing and enjoying ourselves to the sounds we dig!

And all that "No they are pop or poppy Disco but not real Disco or they gave Disco a bad name" is simply mosquitomilking!

If you can't admit that f.i. "You should be dancing" is a Disco classic, then you have a very fundamentalistic attitude. I still go beZerk when that 1 bursts out of the speakers and I'm never gonna apologize or be ashamed for liking it

The Bee Gees were massive in our Discothèques and we DANCED on their tracks and we had a lot of FUN doing that.

Barry, Robin, Maurice and Andy deserve our respect!

[needlefingers]

The song How Deep Is Your Love was released before the movie came out.

In fact, the reason people initially went to the movie, was because they wanted to hear this song, which was already at the top of the charts.

But what they left with....., well that's the stuff dreams are made of.

TV Land is running the movie this month, and here is a connection to the original movie trailer.

Watch Movie Trailers and Videos Online : Movie show times on tvland.com

Take the music out of this snippet and all you have is a man carrying a can of paint.

[Simon White]

Of course The Bee Gees did make Disco music...no one can question that.

But they existed as a successful POP group (and a very good one) before their SNF movie fueled success and Disco existed before the Bee Gees went down that Disco route.

Therefore, the Bee Gees are a great POP group and the SNF songs are great POP records that have a Disco slant and were they not written especially for the benefit of what became a hugely popular movie ?

I just dug the soundtrack album out, bought I might add for 50p ( a Dollar today or under a Euro) in the mid eighties when I was DJing at weddings and parties a lot and Night Fever & Staying Alive were two tracks guaranteed to get the kids, mums, dads, grannies and drunken uncles up dancing !

The 17 track album came out on RSO, Robert Stigwood Organisation, who also produced the movie.
Looking at it, The Bee Gees have the main picture on the cover, and the main picture on the back. The group sing 6 of the album tracks, plus Tavares sings a version of one of those, plus another of their songs sung by Yvonne Elliman.

The rest of the album is other artists (and interestingly, 6 are INSTRUMENTAL- 7 if you include Kool & The Gang's 'Open Sesame' which is hardly a song) while the Bee Gees tracks rely very heavily on the groups vocals, melodies and lyrics. The remaining two tracks are The Trammps and KC & The Sunshine Band, both very much DISCO acts.

No disputing the Disco credentials of "You Should Be Dancing" ...it's great with or without the movie.
No doubting the IMMENSE popularity of the movie or the soundtrack. But lets make no mistake, The Bee Gees songs on the SNF soundtrack, as good as they are are POP songs by a POP group. The whole album is geared very much towards HUGE POP sales and that's what happened.

I know nothing about the recordings the group made just before or just after the movie...does anyone know and were they in the same dance style?

[needlefingers]

I know nothing about the recordings the group made just before or just after the movie...does anyone know and were they in the same dance style?

For everyone who may not know, You Should Be Dancing is not originally from Saturday Night Fever, but from a Bee Gees album earlier titled Children Of The World. Also included on this lp is You Stepped Into My Life, Boogie Child and the ballad Love So Right. This is from 1976. So they were doing disco before SNF.

Their Main Course lp released before that, in 1975, gave us Jive Talkin' and Nights On Broadway.

Then came Saturday Night Fever ('77-'78), which by the way, the new songs(Staying Alive, Night Fever....etc.) were actually meant for their next album. It was Robert Stigwood who convinced them to add them to the film instead. They did not write these songs for the film. They were already recorded or in the process when they were asked.

After the film came the next lp in 1979, Spirits Having Flown, spawning the hits Tragedy, Too Much Heaven, Spirits Having Flown and Love You Inside Out.

The Bee Gees had me back in the 1960's with the song Words. And I have been with them ever since. I remember one Christmas telling my mother I wanted the 45 of Lonely Days, Lonely Nights.

It is my opinion that they are both pop and disco. Nothing wrong with that. Many groups, actors and other entertainment acts cross genres. Look how The Beatles grew.

There is an excellent VH1 Behind The Music: Saturday Night Fever. It tells the whole story about how the songs were just dropped into scenes during editing. They (production team) didn't really have a plan as where to place the recordings. As they got closer to finishing editing and nearer to its release date, they were afraid they had a big flop on their hands.

[Videoskooter]

Needlefingers for President! :icon_cool:

Great analysis my friend!

Maybe we can call it Dapper Disco (you know the kinda Disco that's cool, neat, stylish) :icon_smile: (Yep I just invented that one, with all due respect to Don Gotti!)

Maybe that will do the trick.

[RetroRuss]

I have just recorded this week show for JSR and the track I start with is MFSB's K-Jee from SNF!! Spooky. Anyway I agree with Simon. The Bee Gees are a pop act who, throughout the years have kind of gone with the flow and recorded tunes that were right for the time. They recorded and wrote Disco sounding tracks. The only disco orientated track that I like of theres is You Should Be Dancing - the rest are pop.

I'm not keen on Eurodisco (we're definitely not European us Brits Johann, even if our Government wants us to be!). As for Abba, don't get me started...not disco, never disco - just pop & bland pop at that!!

[Disco Funk]

Bee Gees did some nice dance songs, but they were a pop group that did some R&B tinged dance music, and a few disco tunes. They can't be considered the best disco act because they didn't do entire disco or dance albums. They're as much of a disco act as Paul McCartney was (he did Goodnight Tonight, Silly Love Songs and a few other R&Bish dance tunes). Had they not been featured on the SNF soundtrack, I don't think they'd be considered a disco act at all.

As for them not being on compilations, that's probably because it's their own doing, not the compilation-makers ignoring them. Just like you don't see any Beatles tunes on 60s music CDs, you don't see Bee Gees disco stuff on comps because they make more money having people buy their own Greatest Hits CDs.

Disco Funk

[remicks]

*****


BILLBOARD'S NATIONAL DISCO ACTION TOP 40

February 11, 1978

1) SUPERNATURE/ GIVE ME LOVE/ LOVE IS HERE - Cerrone (Cotillion LP)
2) LET'S ALL CHANT/ LOVE EXPRESS - Michael Zager Band (Private Stock 12")
3) BIONIC BOOGIE (entire LP) - Bionic Boogie (Polydor LP/12")
4) TWO HOT FOR LOVE - THP Orchestra (Butterfly LP)
5) ONCE UPON A TIME (LP) - Donna Summer (Casablanca LP)

6) STAYIN' ALIVE/ NIGHT FEVER - The Bee Gees (RSO LP)

7) CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO/ RAINY NIGHT IN RIO - Tuxedo Junction (Butterfly LP)
8. GIMME SOME LOVIN'/ AFRICANISM - Kongas (Crocos LP-Import)
9) LOVE MACHINE/ JOHNNY, JOHNNY, PLEASE COME HOME/ DANCIN' FEVER - Claudja Barry (Salsoul LP)
10) DANCE WITH ME - Peter Brown (Drive LP/12")



de facts are de facts folks :icon_cool:



******

[Simon White]

They certainly are remicks.
And here's another.
The Bee Gees are a million selling Pop act who also made some very successful Disco records-

Here are some more facts.
Rod Stewart, Shirley Bassey, Andy Williams, The Beach Boys, Roxy Music, Abba, Wings, James Last, Cher, Ann Margret, Elton John and Dolly Parton are million selling Pop/Rock/Country/MOR acts who also made some very successful Disco records.

[needlefingers]

And some more Billboard facts.....


1975

Jive Talkin' - #9 Disco Singles

1976

You Should Be Dancing - #1 Club Play #1 Disco Singles

1979

Tragedy - #22 Club Play

[needlefingers]

And furthermore...


....when they went to parody disco in the movies Airplane and Foul Play, they didn't turn to Rod Stewart or Andy Williams or Dolly Parton.

They didn't even turn to Donna Summer or KC.

They turned to the Bee Gees Staying Alive.

While purists will not admit that the Bee Gees were a disco act, at one point in a long and varied career, the rest of the world does.

[Simon White]

This is another one of those hilarious situations when things get twisted around...... yes, we know the Bee Gees were a Disco act ...at one significant point in their career !

They are probably not included on many Disco compilations because their material is difficult, expensive or impossible to licence.
The original posting is berating this website for not giving the Bee Gees their Disco dues, which is kind of missing the point about the site surely. This is not a Bee Gees site, it's a DISCO site and THANK GOD it covers waaaaaaaaay beyond that subject.



You can pull as many Billboard Disco charts out as you like. You can also show Pop charts that will show the same popularity !

Yes, they were used as a subject for parody lots and lots of times. That's because they were a hugely successful Pop act with a strong Pop image and style (and one that wasn't far from parody anyway) that was easy to parody Disco during an era where Disco acts were somewhat faceless.

Let's make no mistake, The Bee Gees were a Pop act.

Here's the label scan for 'You Should Be Dancing' with some very pertinent comments -

http://www.discomusic.com/records-more/118_0_2_0_C/

It may be that the group had their biggest US success with Dance music so that's how the US mainstream record buying public best knows them.
Maybe their image just touched a particular chord with some people at the time and allowed America's restricted mainstream males to grow from cygnets to swans or to become peacocks and strut proudly and colourfully around the floor, throw on a chiffon scarf, place their hands on hips, shirts open to the waist while getting in touch with their feminine side.
Go for it boys !

[Videoskooter]