Bee Gees — “You Win Again” (from The Ultimate Bee Gees
Bee Gees — “One” (from The Ultimate Bee Gees
Bee Gees — “Alone” (from The Ultimate Bee Gees
“Jive Talkin'” went to number one fourteen months before I was born, and their massively successful string of disco-dance smashes had reached its natural conclusion while I was still crawlin’ to get walkin’ as a pop music buff, so while I have a dispassionate admiration for the uptempo material that made them worldwide superstars, it is only with their later, less commercially successful work that I feel a true personal connection to the music of the Brothers Gibb (of whom, tragically, there now remains only one left standing, following last weekend’s death from cancer of Robin Gibb). Think me nuts if you must, but I would proudly place all three of these tracks — particularly the first of them, a stunner from 1988 that was inexplicably a non-starter here in the States but a massive smash in practically every other territory on the globe — among my favorite pop songs of all time, and blasting this brilliant aural triptych at full volume is how I choose to bid Robin a final adieu from my own little plot of earth. (Incidentally, I am getting damn tired of writing obituaries of my childhood heroes in such rat-a-tat-tat succession, and therefore am kindly prevailing upon the gods of grace who determine our fragile fates to just cool it for a bit. Quite frankly, I’m still trying to get over Whitney, and I just don’t know that I have room in my heart for another wrenching farewell for at least another six months. Pretty, pretty please.)
