MAIN COURSE OF DELICIOUS SOUNDS
Main Course by The Bee Gees
One of my favorite online places to visit is the All Music Guide site. Not only is the music coverage absolutely comprehensive, but they've also got a nifty feature that lets you associate artists with styles and other artists through the years. This mapping feature (and that is what they call it) does not do near enough justice to this album.
There undoubtedly would have been a disco revolution without The Bee Gees. What made them different, and still differentiates their music today, is the melodic way in which the Brothers Gibb were able to make the world dance. And make no mistake about it, people danced, and not just to the later Saturday Night Fever. Main Course was the album that helped shape SNF and a host of other disco hits for every artist in creation.
Remember too, before we review the album, the history of the band. After having broken in as a folk/country trio with Beatlesesque harmonies, the band broke up. They gathered together again in 1974 to release the album Mr. Natural, which first teamed them with producer extraordinaire Arif Mardin. The album didn't feature any hits, but Mardin made the group stretch, introducing driving rhythms, new harmonies and an appreciation for overlaying synths, horns and strings without creating an impenetrable wall of sound. Still, there was the occasional fluff with songs like Charade (that's pronounced Shah-rod, thank you), that sounded pretty, but failed to chart.
For Main Course, Mardin and the boys did not drive the beat so much as sculpt its rhythm. The album featured one bona fide world smash in Jive Talkin', several other hits and a host of material that Bee Gees fans to this day consider to be among their strongest work. I believe that even the so-called filler cuts merit attention on a classic album. Main Course is 40 minutes of such an album.
Usually in a review such as this I might tell someone to start with this album or start with another and come back to this, but that is silly in this case. You have all heard the group, you have heard some of these songs and you already have a notion of what you think the group's music means. What I will ask you to do (particularly if you own the album) is take a fresh listen to some of the things pointed out below. You may be surprised and even regret that "Disco Sucks" t-shirt you wore.
Because this is what true disco was supposed to be.
The cuts
Nights On Broadway - This song that enjoyed a huge amount of radio play in the 1970s and is sadly lost to most tight formats now. The first cut is punctuated by Barry Gibb's falsetto counterpoint on the chorus, a sound that would literally become synonymous with the group's name. Blue Weaver pumps his keyboards for all they are worth in this cut, the harmonies are fast but tight, and there is a terrific bridge that slows the entire song before winding it all back into a frenzy. Just like any night on the real Broadway.
Jive Talkin' - What we have here is the granddaddy of disco (and boys and girls, don't think that disco didn't shape the musical world for better or worse, just listen to what's coming out now.) Barry Gibb said in a VH1 Storytellers episode that they lifted the rhythm from the sound their car tires made while crossing a bridge on the way to Criteria Studios in Miami. Fantastic guitar work is the watchword here. In fact, the first time you go back to listen again, focus on the guitars, all of 'em. This may just be the best-produced song of the 1970s and is as original for its decade as anything the Beatles created in the prior decade.
Wind Of Change - Again, this is the disco sound as it was meant to be, particularly in the eastern US in 1975. Horns and strings swirl around a vocal that unfortunately has a bit too much English on it for even my liking. The vocal is what takes away from the song ultimately, but man, that rhythm is gonna get ya.
Songbird - The brothers do their ballads on every album and this is an achingly tender song. The placement on the album is strange and probably does more to stop the listener as well as focus attention on the next cut. I have never heard this song done live, but it must have been killer while Barry still had vocal power at the top of his register. This actually ended up on one of my personal mix tapes. I have not tired of listening to the song in 25 years.
Fanny (Be Tender With My Love) - Ballad or dance tune? Not sure, so w will call it late 1970s pop. As in Nights on Broadway, the falsetto counterpoint and shifting tempo make this song very special. Listen particularly to the overdubbed harmonies again on the bridge. 'N Sync wishes they could pull that off live.
All This Making Love - The second side of the album (for those of you who still use albums) opens with this very McCartney-ish tune. A staccato piano, twisted vocals (think "You Gave Me The Answer" or Queen without the overdubs) and the trademark harmonies are the order of the day here. This song sounds so much like Sir Paul's work at the time, though, that my wife or I usually call out "Send the royalties to Scotland" whenever we hear this particular tune.
Country Lanes - Robin Gibb's quaver can be exceptionally cool to listen to, especially when he is in a mournful ballad or blues tune. A great example of this is his cover of The Beatles' Oh! Darling. Here, Robin gives the best vocal performance on the album - even better than Barry's turn on Songbird. The song is not the same, however, and Robin's tune has a strange martial-like tempo and phrasing to the chorus that prevent it from being a tender, mushy, squishy sort of thing. I like the song, but it is not one to evoke tender memories. Worse, as it starts to appear that it might, the song bangs away into that march.
Come On Over - A bit of Australian reminds the listener of the band's roots. This song was really popularized by Olivia Newton-John's cover version, but the Gibbs do some of the best twanging of their career on this cut. Nashville has always been ambivalent about them because, after all, they are from the wrong side of the tracks, but they sure do write pretty country. A sweet little piano and the best harmonies on the album await you when you drop the needle here.
Edge Of The Universe - If the opening cut on this side is the McCartney composition, here is the McCartney song tempered by Lennon. Bizarre lyrics that sound for the entire world as if they were written under a hazy cloud of some sort of smoke and a rollicking little tune. Everything works, but the song is so out of context on this album that it becomes somewhat discordant to listen to. Where this song really works is on the live version of Here At Last.Live, not on the stuio version. Well I'm ten feet tall, but I'm only three feet wide indeed!
Baby As You Turn Away - I respect Barry's falsetto, especially on the early albums that he used and it was still sweet and unstraining (for the most part). There are very few songs that I find I like better without hearing the higher tones. This is one. Sung in a natural register, the song is a lightweight Beatles song from 1965. That i's not criticism; it's high praise indeed. The song is still likeable, but doesn't track well with the falsetto and for some inane reason, has the muddiest sounding chorus I've heard on any professional cut. I thought it might be me, but the sound is accentuated on the CD version and still sounds rotten. Who knows why, but I have found tiny mixing issues on a number of Bee Gees songs from that era. This is one, and unfortunately stops the song from being a triumphant capstone for a truly wonderful album.
