Odessa - Bee Gees Review

inappropriate. Before you take my gushing five-star review at face value, it should be mentioned that this boxset is directed toward die hard Bee Gees enthusiasts rather than the casual fan. Fair enough; this long-awaited collection gives an incredibly detailed look at one of the trippiest, most complex examples of soft AM pop ever. While the band’s first three albums experimented with arrangements and were ambitious in their own right, Odessa shows The Bee Gees at their most far-reaching. With tentative titles such as Masterpeace and An American Opera, there’s no doubt they were thinking about the album as a whole, not just songs and singles. But despite the conceptualization, incredible songwriting, and a ’This is our album and we’ll do whatever the fuck we want’ sort of approach, Odessa has always been a dark horse next to albums like SF Sorrow, Sgt. Pepper’s, and Days of Future Past.

Although their previous records shared a melancholic undercurrent, there are moments in Odessa that are downright devastating, forever raising the bar for sad music. The opening and title track, saturated in hallucinatory reverb, tangles a lost-at-sea story with a man’s desperate attempt to contact an old love. Themes continue to spiral downward during the next three songs, with sinister lyrics like “It makes me laugh/ You’ve got no friends,” “I followed a river/ Where the dead man would lay” and “15 kids and a family on the skids/ I’ve got to go for a Sunday drive.” At the bottom of the well is “I Laugh in Your Face,” one of the darkest, most brutal soft-pop songs of all time....full text During 1967 and 1968, the Bee Gees became an international phenomenon with three albums and many more singles of folky balladry, most of them smashes. That stopped when their lavish 1969 double LP, Odessa, produced zero hits; guitarist Vince Melouney left, and Robin Gibb temporarily followed suit. The stereo and mono mixes included in the three-disc reissue of this disruptive opus present the Gibb brothers' arrangements at their most opulent: The string-laden instrumentals and soulful baroque pop evoke the splendor of the Moody Blues. And a third disc with demos suggests the unpolished sprawl of the Beatles' White Album. Stripped of window dressing, baubles like "Melody Fair" prove the Gibbs' effusive melodies and aching harmonies are ends in themselves....full text The Bee Gees' ambitious 1969 double-album epic Odessa is often thought to represent the pinnacle of their first era, showcasing them at their most ambitious and expansive. This 40th anniversary 3-disc reissue treats the album with even more reverence than fans of the Brothers Gibb might have been expecting. But unless you're already convinced that the album is a masterpiece, discerning fans of chamber-pop might wonder at all the fuss....full text