Swedish hit machine ABBA scored their 8th number one in the UK with THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL (more than 335 million streams on Spotify) this
day in 1980. By then the two couples were divorced. No winner(s) in this case,
I guess.
Who: Singer-songwriter from the small town of Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland.
His musical inspiration was drawn from classic voices outside of the tensions in
his homeland. Bill Withers, Marc Cohen, Tom Waits, and the like were all bright colours
from a musical palette far away from the often-grim surroundings of Northern Ireland
at that time. Rogers’ voice and sound pull from the vast well of timeless Americana,
all the while underpinned by the authentic writings of his life and its surroundings.
Rogers: “I don’t like the idea of songs sitting silently on hard drives. These ones were
written to be heard and I kind of like that they don’t fit with anything else other than back
to back together on their own EP… For this EP I wanted to hark back a bit to the excitement
of holding a piece of music in your hands, reading sleeve notes, taking in the artwork and looking at something other than your phone while listening. There’s so much missing from
the whole experience these days. I still love the ritual of pulling a CD case open, or putting
the needle arm onto a record on the turntable, and I really think the contents of this EP
lend themselves perfectly to that.””
(photo by Ken Haddock)
Turn Up The Volume: This is high-quality songwriting. From riveting grooves
to soul-stirring balladry. Compelling stories, masterly arrangments, instantly
sticking melodiousness, and a magnific Americana voice. Arresting work.
Discover and enjoy all six beauties…
.
Besides the five original songs Rogers also included his remarkable cover of the 1977
Bee Gees’ massive disco hit Stayin’ Alive. Remarkable as he slows the song down in a mesmerizing way and because his warm and melancholic vox – instead of the brothers’ helium vocals – changes the resonance totally. A gem of a cover…
These are the Bee Gees I love. Their era of bittersweet ballads.
Like Spicks And Specks, Don’t Forget To Remember Me, First Of May,
World, Massachusetts and so many more. All massive hits.
The period after somebody kicked them in the balls and they started
to sing with a helium voice isn’t really my cup of tea. For the Gibb Brothers
it meant global succes for the second time.
Band: DEE GEES
The ridiculous name the Foos
came up with for this occasion.
New album: HAIL SATIN What: Covers of 5 Bee Gees songs from their Saturday Night Fever era and
5 live versions of tracks from the Foos‘ newest LP Medicine At Midnight Release: The CD version came out on Record Store Day, now you can
stream it on Spotify.
The Bee Gees hits that the Dee Gees (stupid name)
cover…
“You Should Be Dancing”
“Night Fever”
“Tragedy”
“More Than a Woman”
plus Andy Gibb’s “Shadow Dancing”
First things first. I like the Bee Gees a lot. Between 1966-1969 they were
the champions of melancholic love ballads with timeless pearls like: I’ve Gotta
Get A Message To You / Don’t Forget To Remember Me / Massachusetts / First Of
May. The moment they started to inhale tons of helium, I wasn’t interested
anymore. I understand why millions of people loved it, but not me, not my
cup of tea.
I like the Foo Fighters (and Dave Grohl, the nicest dude in rock) but I’m not
a devoted fan. I dig their hits and some great album tracks here and there.
But that’s about it.
Now that album! It’s cheap, it’s lousy and it’s lazy. Sounds exactly like if they
copied/pasted the original version of those 5 Bee Gees songs and had nothing
else to do with the project. The Foos pretend to be fans of the Gibb Brothers but
don’t honor them at all with this pathetic affair. I guess they knew they failed badly
as they only, fortunately, covered 5 tracks and added – to make it a full-length product –
5 live versions of pieces from their new mediocre album, which is just FF by numbers.
Arrrgghhhh…
Hail Satin is a big contender
for the worst album of 2021.
Since FOO FIGHTERS shared a cover of the BEE GEES‘ mega hit YOU SHOULD BE DANCING earlier this year we know that Dave
Grohl and co are big fans of the Gibb Brothers‘ harmonies.
And the Foos are taking it a step further with a limited vinyl LP, titled HAIL SATIN, with 5 Bee Gees covers, but also 5 live versions of Medicine
at Midnight (their newest album) tracks. This special issue will be out on Record Store Day, 17 July. More info here.
FOO FIGHTERS covering the BEE GEES? Oh yeah, it happened for real
with one of the Gibb brothers’ mega disco hits YOU SHOULD BE DANCING.
And if you think that Dave Grohl can’t sing like da brudders you got it wrong.
“We started recording the instrumental track, and then I thought, ‘OK, well I’m
gonna go out and sing it…’ and let me tell you: I have never, ever in my life sung
like that, but it was the easiest song I have ever sung in my entire life! I sang the
song, and it was like six minutes and I was done. I should have been singing like
this for the last 25 years!” said Grohl in a press statement.
Noel Gallagher once said that the legendary Australian band of brothers, the Bee Gees – with Barry, Maurice, and Andy Gibb – is on his list of the best 10 groups in history. I’m not saying the very same, but when you listen to their canon before their voices got affected by helium it’s crystal clear that da brudders were the champs of melancholic pop balladry.
Barry is the only surviving Gibb and still tirelessly active. Next week he’ll release ‘Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol. 1‘. An album of his beloved old songs reimagined as duets with country and Americana stars. On New Year’s Day the first collaboration went online. Here’s Barry and Dolly Parton with the 1968 Bee Gees hit WORDS…
