BeeGees, "Spirits Having Flown"
CJ says there’s no such thing as too much heaven
CJ’s Pitch:
July 12, 1979. The day the (disco) music died.
I vaguely remember the headlines touting Disco Demolition Night at Comisky Park in Chicago. The Windy City’s rock fans were invited to bring their disco records to the park where they would be blown to smithereens in between games of the Tigers-White Sox doubleheader. What was supposed to be a snarky little radio station promotion turned into a full-scale riot when the explosion blew a hole in the outfield grass and thousands of anti-disco enthusiasts stormed the field and danced around the conflagration like Druids at a ritual sacrifice.
“Yeah, disco sucks!” I remember saying at the time. I was a burgeoning rocker and the bell-bottom and mirror ball crowd were anathema to me. “Death to disco!” I shouted with my pre-teen fist raised in the air.
As it turns out, that stupid stunt did turn out to be the first nail in disco’s coffin. In 1979, there were five disco albums in the Top 20. A year later, there were only two. And by 1981, disco was pretty much gone altogether.
But why? Why did disco spark such a visceral reaction in me and thousands of other rock fans when, in truth, disco and rock shared so much in common? Both were loud and aggressive and given to grand, bombastic gestures. And I bet, under oath, most rock fans would have to admit that they liked disco just a little (or a lot). I know I did.
So, this week let’s celebrate what was perhaps the last great disco album before the genre went up in flames at the home of Chicago’s second favorite baseball team.
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If Donna Summer was the Queen of Disco (no ifs about it, she was), then these three hirsute Brits were the kings. Brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb were all over the dancefloors and movie soundtracks of the 1970s. They scored nine #1 hits and sold 220 million records worldwide. So to insist that you weren’t listening to the Bee Gees in the ‘70s is like saying you never had a Hardy Boys lunchbox (you did). Their soaring three-part harmonies and Barry’s ridiculous falsetto echoed through wood-paneled station wagons across the land.
And yet, I never really thought about the Bee Gees as a group that produced LPs. In my mind, they just kept churning out one single after another. Spirits Having Flown is proof that they not only made real albums, they made really great albums.
The first three tracks shot to #1 almost as soon as they were released. “Tragedy”, “Too Much Heaven” and “Love You Inside and Out” are disco staples. They don’t need my endorsement. However, there are several other songs on the album that don’t get the recognition they deserve. “Search, Find” is a lovely little tune that gets better on repeated listening. The title cut offers the complexity and depth that disco is often criticized for lacking. And “Reaching Out” probably should’ve been the fourth hit single off the album.
If there’s one quibble I have about the work as a whole is that it’s very Barry-heavy. In fact, when I discussed this with Mitch last week he said that a lot of songs sounded like Barry singing backup for Barry (something that I confirmed to be true with a quick Googling). That’s why it’s so nice to hear Robin taking control on “Living Together” which may be the most pleasant surprise on the whole record.
Regardless of how you feel about disco, you have to admire the craftsmanship and artistry of Spirits Having Flown. And for those of you questioning my rock credibility after reading through this pitch, allow me to point you to the Ozzy Osbourne/Dweezil Zappa cover of “Stayin’ Alive”.
If that isn’t a heavy metal love letter to disco, I don’t know what is.
Ken’s Response:
If you didn’t know it before right now, the Bee Gees were a folk band back in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. Sorry, the Bee Gees were an amazing folk rock band. One more try…the Bee Gees were an amazing folk rock band whose perfectly effortless harmonies rivaled those of standard-bearers The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash! It took the world over 10 years to fully embrace the brothers three and their impeccable voices.
It’s fitting that the Bee Gees windfall came with the success of the soundtrack to 1977’s Saturday Night Fever, a film that makes you realize why disco sucks in the first place. It’s a ridiculous story of how dancing at shitty, smoke-filled New York clubs can somehow save you from a dead-end life. Its superficial, shallow, and misogynistic script is a rejection of peace & love and tranquility the Woodstock generation swore they were striving for, and maybe that’s the point, but you did it to yourselves, Boomers! You had the world on a string, and you fucked it all up. The soundtrack to this shitty movie, however, is one of the top 4-5 of all time!
But while the Bee Gees made a big score, their new-found stardom was, to paraphrase CJ from a few weeks ago, the sound of the Bee Gees (as we knew them) dying. The gorgeous, stark pieces like “Massachusetts” and “I Started A Joke” were pushed aside for typical, overproduced disco-beat infused tracks that all sound like remixes of originals. And that’s disco…too many effects, clunky instrumentation, boring, repetitive drum beats, and as catchy and fun as the songs can be, I can only take them in small doses.
For every mediocre “Tragedy” on Spirits Have Flown, there is a “Too Much Heaven” that reminds us how incredibly talented Barry, Robin, and Maurice are. To counter the musical immaturity of the ennui-inducing “Love You Inside Out”, they give us the hauntingly spacey and emotional “Until”. There’s too much good to keep this album off the shelves of the Newbury St. Collection.
Pitch Successful (if you think I’m going dancing with you, Stop (Think Again))
Mitch’s Response:
As music fanatics, we have a tendency to think that we were born at the wrong time. If only we could have been alive to experience Salieri at the Salon, or Sinatra at the Sands, or Seger at the Superdome (okay, I was definitely around for that last one and skipped it, but you get the idea). We spend far too much time bemoaning what we missed, instead of appreciating what we have.
The good news is that we were born at exactly the right time to enjoy disco.
As CJ mentioned, the (second) day the music died took place in 1979 when I was all of 8 years old. I couldn't understand why a bunch of denim-clad dirtbags with feathered hair and whispy mustaches would burn dance records, and I had no sympathy for their cause. I guess they decided the best way to 'fight the gay' was to get together with a bunch of sweaty dudes and throw a bonfire.
From my youthful perspective, the disco world always seemed awesome. Sexy people, barely dressed in polyester, dancing and just having fun - a lot more fun than burning stuff in a second-tier baseball team's second-tier stadium. That's the best word to describe disco: fun. You'd hear all these wild stories about NYC and Studio 54 and it always sounded fun. And the best part is that we were young enough to enjoy all of the fun of disco without acquiring a crippling cocaine addiction or getting shaken down by some dirty vice cops.
See? We were born at exactly the right time for disco: all of the fun with none of the rehab.
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The craziest thing about Spirits Having Flown is that there are several classic songs and precisely zero filler songs on the album, and yet there are still at least 8 disco-era BeeGees songs that are better than anything on Spirits Having Flown. Think about how crazy that is: an album that would be the career achievement from most any other artist is a standard issue catalog album from the BeeGees.
It is somewhat of a misnomer to call this a "disco" album. Yes, it features the falsetto, the drum beat, and the sweet string arrangements that we associate with disco, but Spirits Having Flown is pretty diverse: Sure, "Tragedy" and "Living Together" continue the Saturday Night Fever sound, but "Reaching Out" and "Stop (Think Again)" are straight Philly Soul, "Spirits" is British pop, while "Too Much Heaven" is a harmony-drenched ballad, and "Love You Inside Out" gets just a little bit funky.
My only regret is that I don't have more time to spend with Spirits Having Flown. It's been on a constant loop for a week and I'm dreading the inevitable moment when I'm forced to listen to another terrible rock album from the '70s. Fear not, I look forward to metaphorically torching those albums on behalf of Team Disco. Polyester never burns.
Pitch Successful (the photoshop on Maurice is the only bad thing on this album)
CJ’s pitch was successful, and the BeeGees’ Spirits Having Flown has soared into the Newbury St. Collection. What’s your take on disco and The BeeGees? Which Top 20 album from 1979 would you have pitched? Please let us know in the comments section.
Other albums from 1979 we’ve covered:
Please join us next week as the EONS Time Machine returns to the streets of Cambridge in 1988 with Ken’s pitch for Tracy Chapman’s Tracy Chapman.
In 1981, at the ripe old age of ten, my older sister and I flew from our home in Bermuda to visit my dad’s family in the UK. I came back from that trip with four records, two albums and two singles. One of those albums was Spirits Having Flown. I’d grown up hearing my dad play The Bee Gees on his reel to reel player at parties. And now I finally owned my own piece of their work!! The other album was from another of my dad’s favorite artists (and consequentially one of mine), Neil Diamond’s You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore.
My musical tastes were starting to change by that point as I also came home with two singles - The Specials’ Ghost Town and Kraftwerk’s Double A-Side single Computer Love/The Model.
Back to Spirits Having Flown, I’m listening to it again now for the first time in what has to be over three decades and I’d forgotten just how fantastic it is! Thanks for bringing it back into my consciousness!!
Disco did not die. It just went underground. It is ironic that its rebirth was centered in Chicago and the rise of House music that was largely both queer and black. As with many cultural movements, disco collapsed under its own brief fame. It was hip to be disco until it was hip to not be disco which made it cool to be disco (or house.)
I am disappointed that there were no references to the classic movie, "The Last Days of Disco."