The Bee Gees were a pop music band formed in 1958. The band's line-up consisted of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were successful for most of their decades of recording music, but they had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a popular music act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as prominent performers of the disco music era in the late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies; Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the late 1970s and 1980s. They wrote all of their own hits, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists.
Relying on their top-notch songwriting and impeccable vocals, the Bee Gees were able to craft a long-running career that began in the late '50s in Australia. Along the way they became a hit-producing psychedelic pop group in England during the '60s and the biggest disco band in the world in the '70s, and had a late comeback as adult contemporary crooners in the '90s. Their long-reaching influence extended past sales figures and saw their sound and style mirrored in acts as disparate as Justin Timberlake and of Montreal.
E.S.P. is the seventeenth studio album (fifteenth worldwide) by British group Bee Gees. Released in 1987, it was the band's first studio album in six years, and their first release under their new contract with Warner Bros. It marked the first time in twelve years the band had worked with producer Arif Mardin, and was their first album to be recorded digitally. The album sold well in Europe, reaching No. 5 in the UK, No. 2 in Norway and Austria, and No. 1 in Germany and Switzerland, though it barely made the top 100 in the US. The album's first single, "You Win Again", reached No. 1 in the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Norway.
It may sound silly to call the 12th album by a group with an eight-year string of gold records behind them a "breakthrough," but that's what Main Course was. The group's first disco album – and, for many white listeners, the first disco album they ever purchased – Main Course marked a huge change in the Bee Gees' sound. The group's earlier LPs, steeped in a dense romantic balladry, were beautifully crafted but too serious for any but hardcore fans. Main Course had a few ballads, such as "Songbird" and "Country Lanes," but the writing was simpler, and the rest of it was made up of catchy dance tunes (heavily influenced by the Philadelphia-based soul music of the period), in which the beat and the texture of the voices and instruments took precedence over the words. The combination proved irresistible, and Main Course – driven by the singles "Jive Talkin'," "Nights on Broadway," and "Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)" – attracted millions of new listeners.
The group's second album, cut late in 1967 amid their first major British success, is less focused than their first, but also presents a more majestic sound than its predecessor…
The Bee Gees' third album is something of a departure, with more of a rocking sound and with the orchestra (apart from a few well-placed harp arpeggios) somewhat less prominent in the sound mix than on their first two LPs. The two hits, "I've Gotta Get a Message to You" and "I Started a Joke," are very much of a piece with their earlier work, but on "Kitty Can," "Indian Gin and Whisky Dry," and "Such a Shame" (the latter written by the group's then lead guitarist, Vince Melouney), among other cuts, they sound much more like a working band with a cohesive group sound, rather than a harmony vocal group with accompaniment…
The Bee Gees' second R&B album, Children of the World, had the advantage of being written and recorded while the group was riding a string of Top Ten singles and the biggest wave of public adulation in their history off of the Main Course album. The group felt emboldened, but was also hamstrung by the absence of producer Arif Mardin, whose services were no longer available to them now that RSO Records had severed its ties to Atlantic Records. So they produced it themselves, all six bandmembers doing their best to emulate what Mardin would have had them do, with assistance from Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson.