Rooftop Reviews: "The Ultimate Bee Gees"

I was never much of a Bee Gees fan, beyond their early hits such as "I've Gotta Get A Substance to You", "New York Mining Disaster 1941" and the other early pop hits recorded between 1967 and 1972. Of line they scored a super crossover with "To Know Somebody", a large song by the Bee Gees, but a very blues experience in the men of Janis Joplin, who had the power to have any song and do it her own.

Witness her recording of Kris Kristofferon's "Me and Bobby McGee." People even think she wrote that one.

The Bee Gees became the soundtrack of the 1970's cocaine, Florida based sound of Disco music and Huck-a Poo shirts. This 2 CD compilation is a great will to the part that the Bee Gees made to music. That they survived for 4 decades in an industriousness that thrives on change says some very strong things around the group, and ourselves. Did this radical change over time, or with time? Did they steer, or were they steered by, the sentences they were in?There was a time when I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to something like "Jive Talkin' ", yet yesterday I found myself in the car, windows down, breeze blowing, singing along to it! And as the album played on, I began to see exactly how often of the background music to my spirit has been by the Bee Gees. I danced to them in every major metropolis of the earth when I was traveling during the 70's and 80's. I listened to them as background music in movies and still in elevators and at malls. And they have been a staple at every Bar Mitzvah or Wedding that I have attended for the past 30 years.

Checking out the playlist of 40 songs there is not one that doesn't evoke some kind of storage or outcome from their 3 decades at the top of the charts. The pictures of the group over the years also exhibit a singular transformation of the brothers from Pop Stars to Disco Kings.

Every once in awhile I surprise myself by reading, or hearing to, something that I didn't believe I really cared for. This was one of those times. As to the relevancy the Bee Gees still exert on our current music scene, both in healthy and style - just hold out the hat that last night's "America's Got Talent" winner was wearing and so looking backwards at the top of this album. Oh, and in between there has been another guy with a hat just wish it. His figure was Michael Jackson.