Gibbs and babboons

[Barry]

With the recent untimely death of Maurice Gibb, the "silent BeeGee" (well that's for sure), I couldn't help but throw this on the table: is the current status quo among Zappaphiliacs still to despise and hate disco (make sentence: "spoon" "nose", "dance the night away", "libra", "love yer nails")? Me, having spent my puberty in that era where Spandau Ballet, Yazoo and Duran Duran were at the top of the charts, me, I sort of have a weakness for the no-brain, bass induced danceability of "Saturday Night Fever". You vs. disco. What gives?
(the only reason I get to post this without being thrown out of the forum, is because I pay for it!  )

[Lonesome Cowboy Squirt]

(the only reason I get to post this without being thrown out of the forum, is because I pay for it!  )

Ha, it must be good to be the king!

I'm not so fond of disco per se; I'm more keen on funk - especially the stuff Parliament & Funkadelic released.  When it comes to the brothers Gibb, well, I think they're okay.  They sang very well together.  What I do like about disco is the concept of the extended mix.  There is actually room for a song to develop when it's not squished into a three minute format.......

All right, all right, I'll admit it.  I like "Funkytown."  There, I did it!  UGLY RADIO!  Are you satisfied, Barry?

[Noolie]

Like most things there is a time and a place for everything.  Disco, when applied correctly can have a positive effect.  Take for instance, a wedding reception with a painfully empty dancefloor.  A good DJ can bring the party alive by picking the right disco joint and getting the aunts and uncles up.  
In general, disco still seems silly and trite, but a good beat can come through in almost any music, whether it be rap, reggae, industrial or a cheap set of bongos.
Good beats come from the soul, sometimes they are unfortunately dressed up like John Ravolta.

P-Funk rocks.  Ask George Clinton about a good beat.  Atomic Dog is one of the most sampled songs in modern music.  Bow wow wow, yippee yo yippy yeah!!!!  By the way, that's not a noise made by a standard poodle with shaved nads and pompedorium.

[Lonesome Cowboy Squirt]

Disco, when applied correctly can have a positive effect.  Ask George Clinton about a good beat.  

Warning: playing this record can drastically affect how you shake that thang!

[Slap]

I was NEVER fond of the disco genre.  Quite apart from the lifestyle issues that acompanied it (a subject deserving of more derision than I'm in the mood for tackling at the moment), I think it had a lot to do with the required mechanical nature of the drum parts.  (Really.  Check the Disco Style Manual.)  Thinking through the strange and diverse range of music I have enjoyed in my life, there's really very little there that contains simple, repetitive drum parts that NEVER VARY.  (Even the Beatles.  Anybody who thinks Ringo was just a dumb metronome should give a deep listen to A Day In The Life -- his playing has a subtle swing that's expressive as hell, without getting complex.)

BUT....like anything else, any genre can contain worthwhile and creative expression, whether it's compositional, lyrical, satirical or the product of clever production.  Of the blatantly commercial arm of the disco realm, I always found Giorgio Moroder's work to have frequent sonic -- as opposed to compositional or lyrical -- appeal.  Of course, like I usually do, I get drawn to the less-successful things he did, most notably Sparks' Number One in Heaven -- which was not necessarily a successful Sparks album, but was a genuinely creative disco album.  Proof of its creativity can be found in its resounding lack of commercial success.

As Dr. Sharleena points out in another thread in this very Forum, excessive repetition can make even the most creative work become annoying and repugnant, and can very effectively mask beauty and accomplishment.  Which definitely brings me to the Gibbs.

Me, I have ALWAYS been a fan of smart pop music.  Any writer who's able to take a genre filled with requirements and make art that surprises in its innovative use of the conventions gets my admiration.  I have an abiding vomit response to Beach Boys music, for example -- but the melody of God Only Knows stops me in my tracks every time and is on my list of most unexpectedly beautiful melodies I've ever heard.  Likewise, I appreciate Abba's accomplishments in song structure and melody; the Association's gift for vocal arrangement and production; and Burt Bacharach's continued ability to wring originality and great unpredictable beauty out of nearly everything he touched.  (The recordings of his work are another matter, but I digress.)

The Gibbs, IMO, were one of the most effective and creative writers and producers of adventurous pop music I have ever encountered.  Very little of their melodic work was pedestrian or cynical, and the bulk of it was creative and deceptively complex.  Even the SNF soundtrack stuff was pretty brilliant pop, when you deconstruct it.  It's just HARD to do because the stuff was (and remains) so numbingly overplayed/overhyped, and it's really difficult to separate it from the bizarre cultural revolution that it unwittingly accompanied.  

Now, would I purchase or OWN any of their stuff?  Unless I luck onto a really cheap mint copy of Odessa (and I mean mint vinyl PLUS mint velvet cover), hell no.  I'm not THAT interested.  But in a world of Britney Spears and Shania Twain and boy bands and pseudo-gangsta rap and Christian Pap -- er, Pop -- I'll take ANYTHING the Bee Gees ever recorded in a heartbeat.

But given a choice, I'll put on Black Napkins every time.

[Lonesome Cowboy Squirt]

Hello there.  Time for a Baboon Update.

On the way to work today, "Nights on Broadway" by the Bee Gees came on the radio.  Golly, talk about a blast from the past!  It was originally released in 1975, and I'm sure I hadn't heard it for at least fifteen years, mabye twenty.  I'd totally forgotten about this song, and at the same instant realized how much I really like it.  I find the melody and chord progressions most appealing; I'd venture to say it's my favorite Bee Gees title.  It seems there was much care taken in recording the synthesizer sounds, too.  Really, for a pop song, it's a masterful piece of work.

Given a choice, though, I'd take the Re-gyptian Strut.