{"id":81120,"date":"2014-12-25T15:00:02","date_gmt":"2014-12-25T20:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=81120"},"modified":"2014-12-22T11:37:30","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T16:37:30","slug":"islands-in-the-stream-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/25\/islands-in-the-stream-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Islands in the Stream"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re out until January 5, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2014 while we\u2019re away. We hope you enjoy\u2014and have a happy New Year!<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The elephant in the discotheque: the Bee Gees.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Bee_Gees_1977\"<\/a>

A 1977 publicity photo of the Bee Gees for a television special, \u201cBillboard #1 Music Awards.\u201d From top: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Bee Gees\u2019 dominance of the charts in the disco era was above and beyond Chic, Giorgio Moroder, even Donna Summer. Their sound track to Saturday Night Fever<\/em> sold thirty million copies. They were responsible for writing and producing eight of 1978\u2019s number ones, something only Lennon and McCartney in 1963\/64 could rival\u2014and John and Paul hadn\u2019t been the producers, only the writers. Even given the task of writing a song called \u201cGrease\u201d (\u201cGrease is the word, it\u2019s got groove, it\u2019s got a meaning,\u201d they claimed, hoping no one would ask, \u201cCome again?\u201d), they came up with a classic. At one point in March they were behind five singles in the American Top 10. In 1978 they accounted for 2 percent of the entire record industry\u2019s profits. The Bee Gees were a cultural phenomenon.<\/p>\n

Three siblings from an isolated, slightly sinister island off the coast of northwest England, already in their late twenties by the time the Fever<\/em> struck\u2014how the hell did they manage this? Pinups in the late sixties, makers of the occasional keening ballad hit in the early seventies, the Bee Gees had no real contact with the zeitgeist until, inexplicably, they had hits like \u201cNights on Broadway,\u201d \u201cStayin\u2019 Alive,\u201d \u201cNight Fever,\u201d and the zeitgeist suddenly seemed to emanate from them. This happened because they were blending white soul, R&B, and dance music in a way that suited pretty much every club, every radio station, every American citizen in 1978. They melded black and white influences into a more satisfying whole than anyone since Elvis. Simply, they were defining pop culture in 1978.<\/p>\n

Like ABBA, there is a well of melancholic emotion, even paranoia, in the Bee Gees\u2019 music. Take \u201cHow Deep Is Your Love<\/a>\u201d (no. 1, \u201977), with its warm bath of Fender Rhodes keyboards and echoed harmonies that camouflage the cries of the lyric: \u201cWe\u2019re living in a world of fools, breaking us down, when they all should let us be \u2026 How deep is your love? I really need to learn.\u201d Or \u201cWords<\/a>,\u201d with its romantic but strangely seclusionist \u201cThis world has lost its glory. Let\u2019s start a brand-new story now, my love.\u201d Or \u201cNight Fever<\/a>,\u201d their \u201978 number one, with its super-mellow groove and air-pumped strings masking the high anxiety of Barry Gibb\u2019s vocal; the second verse is indecipherable, nothing but a piercing wail with the odd phrase\u2014\u201cI can\u2019t hide<\/em>!\u201d\u2014peeking through the cracks. It is an extraordinary record.<\/p>\n

Total pop domination can have fierce consequences. Elvis had been packed off to the army; the Beatles had received Ku Klux Klan death threats\u2014the Bee Gees received the mother of all backlashes, taking the full brunt of the anti-disco movement. Radio stations announced \u201cBee Gee\u2013free weekends\u201d; a comedy record called \u201cMeaningless Songs in Very High Voices\u201d by the HeeBeeGeeBees became a UK radio hit. Their 1979 album Spirits Having Flown<\/em> had sold sixteen million copies and spawned three number-one singles (\u201cToo Much Heaven,\u201d \u201cTragedy,\u201d \u201cLove You Inside Out\u201d); the singles from 1981\u2019s Living Eyes<\/em>\u2014\u201cHe\u2019s a Liar\u201d and the title track\u2014reached thirty and forty-five on the chart respectively, and didn\u2019t chart in Britain at all. Almost overnight, nobody played Bee Gees records on the radio, and pretty much nobody bought them. The biggest group in the world at the end of 1978 went into enforced retirement three years later. Could they rise again? Of course they could. Read More >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re out until January 5, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2014 while we\u2019re away. We hope you enjoy\u2014and have a happy New Year! * The elephant in the discotheque: the Bee Gees. The Bee Gees\u2019 dominance of the charts in the disco era was above and beyond Chic, Giorgio Moroder, even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":715,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16464],"tags":[14604,4846,7643,11834,14605,14603,52,7642,13004,14601,14602,12699],"class_list":["post-81120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2014","tag-barry-gibb","tag-britain","tag-disco","tag-grease","tag-maurice-gibb","tag-music-history","tag-pop-music","tag-robin-gibb","tag-saturday-night-fever","tag-the-bee-gees","tag-the-isle-of-man","tag-the-seventies"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIslands in the Stream<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bob Stanley on the elephant in the discotheque, the Bee Gees.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/25\/islands-in-the-stream-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Islands in the Stream by Bob Stanley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 25, 2014 \u2013 We\u2019re out until January 5, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2014 while we\u2019re away. 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