https://arnoldzwicky.org/2016/12/13/stayin-alive/

Stayin’ Alive

Thanks!

I’ve noticed that there are quite a few people experiencing something similar to me with the Bee Gees – an appreciation late in life. But I had no idea, when it started for me, that the others existed. So it wasn’t a mass anything for me; it was quite solitary. The Bee Gees just harmonically resonated with me, and I mean that in the literal sense.

I also enjoy their interviews, but that came later, after I discovered the music. As I think I mentioned in one post or another, my ex-husband and various other love interests of mine throughout my life have been members of multiple-brother families with a very good sense of humor among the brothers. That is a strong characteristic of the Bee Gees also, one that I really like. So it’s very familiar and entertaining for me, too.

And it’s SO interesting that you mention “oscilloscope readouts of the Bee Gees’ voices.” I have thought that very thing myself – that if I could see some analysis of that sort of thing, I might find the scientific quantitative answer to the fascination they exert.

They were obsessed with music, singing, and composing songs, starting at an extremely young age. I’ve learned that that is often true of songwriters – it is something they are driven to do, for the most part. And sometimes siblings end up performing together from an early age. But the Bee Gees are somewhat unique, I believe, in that from the moment they first sang together (they were either 5 and 8, or 6 and 9) they became obsessed with singing together as a group and writing songs as a unit, and that’s mostly what they did for the rest of their lives with just a brief time out, despite periodic altercations (as they mention in the clip). They often described themselves as having felt like triplets as kids, although only Robin and Maurice were the fraternal twins. They also were delinquents as kids, but one day when they were 9 and 12 they decided to go straight, because they felt they would either end up in prison or become big stars. They chose the big star route.

Lists like that are always subjective. Mine was a combination of chart success, record sales, cultural impact, longevity, and artistic ability.

Elvis was huge in the first four of my criteria which is why I had him number one.

Honestly Paul McCartney is probably the most ‘successful’ musician in the history of the world financially so he could be number one easily.

Anyway just my opinion.

What I find the most interesting about you and the Bee Gees is your relative age when this occurred. I don’t think that is very common, but I think it’s a very positive indication. I read that science shows most of us lose our openness to new music in our late 20’s, early 30s. Our tastes tend to be developed by then and do not change. I think it’s a testament to your curiosity and flexibility that you were not only open to listening to the Bee Gees with new ears, but you’ve willingly been doing a lot of research to educate yourself in a new area; music theory and composition.

From reading what you’ve written on the subject I have a strong feeling you’ve already discovered the answer to your fascination. You find certain types of harmonization particularly interesting and there is something about the harmonies that people who share genes and spend years practicing together that particularly appeals to you. I shared a video from a pianist who explained the vibrations of notes and how they overlap and do not overlap on specific chords. I think if you looked at oscilloscope readouts of the Bee Gees’ voices and compared that with oscilloscope readouts of other vocal harmonies you like you’d find a very discernible, tangible pattern. Something identifiable.

So I don’t think there is anything odd about your enjoyment of the Bee Gees, but it is atypical you are doing such a deep dive into a pop music group after decades of little interest. But it’s a very positive thing to continue to want to learn and understand completely new things*.

*My lengthy writing on this thread is mainly an attempt to help you understand that it’s not so particularly unique that the Bee Gees were outstanding songwriters and performers who could also write hit songs for others and their writing spans genres. Folks like that are not a dime a dozen. They are in rarified air. But other folks they share that realm with can also do it. It’s sort of like being a great oil painter, sketcher and sculptor. Different things that few people master, but there are some artists who can relatively easily master all three disciplines. What is, however, extremely rare in pop music is to have a career charting hits in multiple decades with the same group. That is very rare.

It’s not strange. Not at all. Art can be very personal. For example; I cannot stand to hear the Beatle’s “Blackbird.” Either their version, or any of its many covers. It just about rips my heart out. I have no idea why. I’m not even sure if I think it’s a great song or an awful song, but there is something about it that rips into my very soul and tears it to shreds. It’s an incredibly personal feeling.

For years I thought modern jazz was just noise; chaos. I couldn’t tolerate it and assumed everyone who claimed to like it was just saying that to appear hip, and erudite. An “emperor’s new clothes” sort-of thing. But as I played more music myself, and eventually grew more and more familiar with the structure of jazz composition it has become my favorite music.

It’s also not odd that others would experience the same thing you do when hearing a Bee Gees’ song. There seems to be a point where fame breeds more fame; almost a mass hypnosis sort-of thing. There were plenty of women who ignored Leonard Cohen until they didn’t. But there is also something “true” about certain art, even if not everyone experiences it.

I’m not fond of ranking art. Not that I think it’s wrong, I just struggle with doing it.

Unless the ranking is very specific, where facts can be compared. To do a ranking on what Neo seems to be impressed with regarding the Bee Gees this might possibly work:

A list of songwriter(s) and units of a song sold for all songs that appeared on the Billboard Top 100 between 1965 and 1985 (the years the Bee Gees were making hits for themselves and others).

Maybe start by limiting the list to songwriters who had at least 10 songs make the list in that period. Then you have to weight the songs. Obviously units sold should be important, but duration on the list may also be important. We also may want to weight number of covers by additional artists. For example, the Beatles’ “Yesterday*” is one of the most covered pop songs in history. So we might want to also give extra points to success of the song from multiple artists. Neo is also impressed by the different genres the Bee Gees writing spanned, so I don’t think she’d give a lot of credit to a band like the Rolling Stones who have likely charted in 5 – 7 of the prior decades because all their hits have been “Rock.” I think she’d also want some weighting for charting in countries outside the U.S. Interestingly, I don’t even think Elvis Presley would make the top 500. He likely shares a few co-writing credits on a few songs, but I think most all his songs were written by others.

Based on her writing, I think that comes close to pin-pointing where she thinks the Bee Gees were especially exceptional as pop artists.

That looks like a fair amount of research, but I’m guessing the Bee Gees may make a top ten if an analysis of hits in that 30 year period were done.

*Coincidentally written in 1965, the year the Brother’s Gibb first charted.

I actually have become much more aware in recent months of the production side of things.

Also, the Bee Gees didnt just write hits for other people. They wrote many mega hits for them.

But none of that is really what I’m talking about, which for me is their sound. It’s not just that family harmony thing, either, although they certainly have that and that appeals to me (Everlys, for example). They have something extra and different, an extra harmonic vibration of some sort to which some people are extra-sensitive. And I seem to be one of those people, it turns out. And so to me they are very different than all those other people and groups – many whose work I like a lot. But to me the Bee Gees are in a completely different category and are number 1.

It’s strange, i know.

Yeah, Stevie Wonder’s most critically loved work came in the 70s after he got more creative control from Motown so I think of him as separate. Seems hard to pick one artist from the Motown sound as ‘the’ best.