The Bee Gees Uktimate

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.

The Bee Gees were a pop music group formed in 1958. Their lineup consisted of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were especially successful as a popular music act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers of the disco music era in the mid-to-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 mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The Bee Gees wrote all of their own hits, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists…

For the Bee Gees, The Warner Bros. Years run 1987 through 1991 with three albums, two of them major international hits. Those albums are 1987's E.S.P. and 1989's One, records that found the trio skillfully navigating the space between adult contemporary and emerging new jack swing, with the remaining record being 1991's High Civilization, a full-bodied embracement of modern R&B that is stiffly noisy and thoroughly 1991…

The debut international long-player by the Bee Gees may shock anyone who only remembers them for their mid- to late-'70s disco mega-hits, or their quirky early-'70s romantic balladry. Up until 1966, they'd shown a penchant for melodic songs and rich, high harmonies, in the process becoming Australia's answer to the Everly Brothers…

If anyone needs conclusive proof that the brothers Gibb weren't always the chest-medallion-flashing kings of mainstream disco or, since about 1980 on, meaningless AOR washouts, the nearly 40-minute collection of the Bee Gees' earliest hits will suffice in spades..

There is a reason why the Bee Gees have been around for decades, successfully making music – they are innovative craftsmen, who have carved out and maintain a signature sound, while having the ability to adapt to the times that they find themselves composing in…