1. Bee Gees1st
For most people, the hugeness of their disco period manages to hide the fact that the Bee Gees also had a glorious 60s. As any psych pop aficionado will tell you, ‘Bee Gees’ first is a masterpiece. It’s up there with Sgt Pepper, Pet Sounds and Odyssey & Oracle, chock full of fuzzed out guitars, harpsichord and drenched with copious amounts of sumptuous mellotron. I’ve worn out more vinyl copies of this album than any other. There’s some orchestral accompaniment on some tracks which, owing to the quirky arrangements, doesn’t remotely bland out the vibe… the opposite in fact. I’ve sat Beatles fans down and played them ‘In My Own Time’ telling them it’s a long lost track by the Fab Four. The attention to detail is admirable, even down to the Scouse accents. It’d fool pretty much anyone. Whatever pop music has become – and we are hardwired as human beings to reject young people’s creations when we get to a certain age – I have to say this is an example of how timeless and beautiful pop music can be when done properly. It may be stating the obvious, but the Bee Gees REALLY knew how to put a tune together… and all without the aid of protools, autotune or any of the other audio enhancers so vastly overused today.
