I know that there's a generation out there (mine) that will never get past the Bee Gees as being little more 78% of the greatest disco soundtrack (thus a disco band). Your great grandpappy may tell you they were a folk act before that: as if they cloned three Gordon Lightfoots and attached the trio to helium balloons and the blew over to Australia with and harmonized in helium addled Australian accents. And like Gordon their music makes disasters sound lovely(check out the title track- it out-wrecks Edmund Fitzgerald, and theres that mining disaster song that drives my point right into the Chrysler Building, but thats a different album). Believe it. But they also to be the Beatles. Hey who didn't in 1969 (um, three-fourths of the Beatles)? Anyway, come if you come across their red velvet album Odessa you will but it. It will go great with all your other felt-covered albums. Don't leave it on a whore's bed spread (for three obvious reasons).
Beyond the velvet fringe there's music here, and whenever there's music there's songs. This one has seventeen songs it takes two vinyl orbs to hold all that- almost enough to fill Albert Hall. And oh sure its mellow music no Zepplinesque posturing, or Why Don't We Do It In The Road in three part harmony here. But there's square dancing ("Give Your Best" is perhaps their "Ooh La La"), there's opera (The British one) and there's layers like the proverbial onion. The title track might be at home on King Crimson's Wake of the Poseidon album (but theres no room for it, actually). It's time to rethink the Bee Gees, all you "raised on Happy Days" ecstasy babies. Rewire your brain with this one. There's no need to rush down to Sole to Sole and pick up your refurbished platforms. This one's for the dance floor of your medulla oblongata! Keep your cat away from that cover though: my red velvet was lightly coated in albino feline sheddings. That cat is probably long dead now (and unfortunately, so are half of the Gibbs). This is how I choose to remember you all. Bee Gees Odessa-don't go down with the ship.
