Trafalgar
Bee Gees
1971
Album Summary
Trafalgar is a 1971 album by the Bee Gees. It was their ninth album (seventh internationally), and was released in September 1971 in the US, and November 1971 in the UK. The album was a moderate hit in the United States, and peaked at No. 34. The lead single "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?" was the first Bee Gees' No. 1 single in the United States but failed to chart in Britain as did the album. It is Geoff Bridgford's only full-length appearance on a Bee Gees album as an official member. Trafalgar is included in Robert Dimery's book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
WikipediaWas expecting “Staying Alive” and had to settle for my best effort at Staying Awake. I didn’t get this at all. 1.5
This is pre-disco Bee Gees which means it's not even interesting in an annoying way. This was just bleh. Insipid lyrics, music that's trying SO HARD to sound like other bands, and mediocre production combine to create a completely forgettable experience.
Better than expected and not at all like what you expect Bee Gees to sound like
Very low key at first. Clear and intense vocals. Instrumental background feels more focused on the chord progression. Romantic and emphatic (Israel). Surreal and almost inspirational sound (Greatest Man in the World). Remembering has some folk feels to it. Bittersweet. Only knew Stayin’ Alive before; VERY different but pleasant, soft and sweet. Groovy baseline with chord progression in Somebody Stop the Music. Interesting transition into and out of that section. Trafalgar: not sure what’s goin on here. Felt a little bland lyrics-wise. Don’t Wanna Live Inside Myself very feelsy. I like the 3-step bass riff before each section. I like the intro to When Do I with guitar and bells? Synth in background, strings very bright and happy sounding. Dearest vocals powerful and emotional. I like this track a lot. Lion in Winter percussion intro very simple, engaging through its simplicity. I like this track. Walking Back to Waterloo: not sure I understand the lyrics but the sounds are nice. Nice end to the album, I like the long drawn out end to the last notes.
Trafalgar is a good album, but much like a few entrees on the list, it doesn’t justify itself as being essential listening. The first half is really good but it takes a massive dive in the second half (aside from the track Trafalgar which is probably the best on the album). Overall pretty lame considering it as a whole.
I realized I've never listened to a Bee Gees album end-to-end. This one predated their more famous disco work (yet was still their 9th album!) and seemed more heartfelt and ballad-like. Very listenable and a great summer record.
i) This may have never happened if the Beatles had split up earlier--their late 60s/early 70s signature is discernible more than once, ii) I'd blame Paul but there's no escaping that Barry Gibb sounds a lot like John, especially on Greatest Man in the World and the title track (whose vocal line is mostly just a Day in the Life rip, right?), iii) Presumably, the album art and title are only significant in relation to the Gibb's aspiration to be misremembered and romanticised in the same way that British military history is--instead, this achievement belongs to ABBA.
Bee Gees - trafalgar It’s not surprising the Bee Gee’s never really found success with their Moody Blues-esque psych-pomp. Trafalgar’s overwrought orchestration and plodding pace makes it a chore to listen to.
it is way sadder than i thought it would be but it's a fantastic album, super beautiful
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is a classic and I really loved every song that followed it. I don’t know why these goofy voices are so enjoyable but they are.
I love this album. It is lush, emotional, and the instrumentation is great! More than just “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?”, there are a lot of underrated songs from this album. My favorites: “Israel”, “When Do I”, “Remembering”, “Trafalgar”, “Don’t Want To Live Inside Myself”.
1971. Key Songs: Trafalgar, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, Walking Back to Waterloo
The Bee Gees are great! This is much more folksy than the disco hits I've heard, but still really nice.
A lot more Beatles sounding than I was expecting. Really enjoyed it though.
I think I liked this album better the first time I listened to it although there are some songs that I liked more on the second listen. Obviously, I still really like it as you can tell by the rating. It reminded me of Elton John and ABBA so I guess it sounds like an album from the 70s. There are some great songs and some songs that are just decent. "When Do I" is really weird and the chorus sounds almost like a joke. For some reason, it reminds me of Kermit. Even though it's probably the worst song on the album, I kind of love it. The vocals are weird on a lot of songs even including the beginning of How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. Anyway, if this is not even one of the better Bee Gees albums, I guess I should listen to more of the Bee Gees. Favorite songs: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?, Israel, Somebody Stop The Music, Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself, Walking Back to Waterloo Strong 7/10
First time listening: 9/12 songs liked It's like listening to a soft beatles album with extremely glutteral voices, which is odd considering they are mainly known for their disco. I know and like their first track, so I knew what I was getting myself into. Can be bitch if you are tired. No songs saved
mild mellow harmonic not too exciting but pretty tune-y. lots of songs about love and ladies
The Beatles and Elton John influence is apparent here. The Bee Gees are better known for their late '70s disco pop, but this album showcases their ability to craft lush pop centered around themes of loss and remembrance. Highlights for me are 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,' 'Trafalgar,' 'Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself,' and 'Walking Back to Waterloo.'
Well this is surprising and rather lovely. The Bee Gees as serious artists, delivering mature and emotive pop music with a melancholic vibe. Like their more well known work, this is characterised by really nice melodies and harmonies, but with just a little less chart-friendly pure pop polish and more mature sounding instrumentation in the form of horns and strings. Really like this. 4/5
Barry Gibb can write a damn good song. The opener, title track, and closer are all highlights here. The Bee Gees before disco were a totally different rock and roll band, and a great time to listen to.
4.4 - At turns this record reminds me of Electric Light Orchestra, ABBA and the Beatles. The songs are exceptionally well orchestrated and express emotional vulnerability through the lyrics and vocals. There are a couple missteps. "Dearest" sounds like a B-side from "Phantom of the Opera" and "Israel" though pretty comes off as dated propaganda. The distinctive Bee Gees vibrato is here with a vengeance, and I'm sure many will take exception with the vocals. Given the shadow "Saturday Night Fever" casts on all that is Bee Gees, I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed this. I'm also surprised at its tepid critical reception and that it's mostly forgotten by time.
Not at all what I was expecting. More like Elton John at times, and also folkier than I would have thought.
Glad to hear this, I had only heard the disco hits of the bee gees before. This is a wildly different side!
Interesting album. A little calmer and less/different energy than I recall from some of the other Bee Gees stuff I heard. Still pretty good and worth 4 stars
Les Bee Gees nous proposent à ma grande surprise un album formidable, bien que dénué de toute homosexualité.
Every song is great and the album sounds amazing. The orchestration, vocal tracks, various instruments, it’s all there when it comes to production. However, it’s really missing some different styled songs. Each song has a similar tempo and sounds like an outro song. It’s also oddly similar to “LSD” and “Across The Universe” style Beatles.
I've never listened to the Bee Gees but considering their era, this is impressive. It's probably more on the balladry side of rock which can be a bit much. I had my fun with this and I really wanna return to this.
Surprisingly good actually, never really listened to the Bee Gee's other than the classics
Man, I did not expect this to be so BLEAK. The Brothers Gibb are sad. I'm glad that in a few years they will know that you should be dancin'. Yeah. This is soft and gentle if depressing. Seems I like most the tunes written by Maurice, which are the ones that sound most like The Beatles.
I didn't really enjoy this album, and if it wasn't the Bee Gees, it would have ranked lower...just kind of to slow and sad for me today.
There really is nothing like the early Bee Gees (except maybe Christopher Guest in “A Mighty Wind”). More vibrato than falsetto. Although when I say early, I had no idea this was their ninth album! And it's kind of a dark one. Interesting and compelling. And so sad sometimes!
I love The Bee Gees. Both their older and newer stuff. this album isn't my favorite, but I like a lot.
Most of the songs are about love or more specifically breaking up. I'm such a badass because I can't relate to breaking up with someone 😎 privileges of being lonely big W
Pleasant, some nice tracks, a few duds Could have used one or two slightly more upbeat tracks to lift it
Yeah I came into this only thinking of staying alive and snf stuff, so this really surprised me. I liked it a lot, so much that I actually liked 3 songs immediately and they're going on the playlist. 3.5-3.75 so it got a 4
Not the Bee Gees that I expected to hear, and I’m thankful for that. You kind of forget that the group had a short ballad era and these songs really are haunting in the best way. I love ballads but I see why other people may hate them. Dearest is kind of a cheesy song but I loved it, I’d add it to a playlist or just listen solo if I’m in a somber mood. If this album wasn’t so rushed being made I think it could be a 5 star album in my eyes, but 4 stars for sure right now.
I did not expect this from the Bee Gees. In sharp contrast to Stayin' Alive and More Than A Woman, it was wistful, melancholy, and pretty, nearly every song hitting that spot and scratching that itch simultaneously. A comforting, familiar pain, you know? I can't come up with anything clever or witty at the moment, I just want to know the next album because untitled2 so shamelessly assumed I would enjoy it. Let's hope they're correct.
This bonkers divorced dad album features the horniest song about Israel I’ve ever heard.
I didn't listen to it enough to give it a proper review, but it was a bit unremarkable for me
Enjoyed this more than I anticipated. There's a definite cheese factor, but it's genuine cheese - the production is polished but the feelings are still raw. Some great and memorable progressions in here.
Started off way stronger than Odessa but they went back to they kind of lost me again about halfway through. Was hoping for some kind of big concept album about the battle of Trafalgar or something
The bee gees have a different sound here than the disco era hits I was used to. This isn't a bad album, as it's more soft rock than anything, it just seems like they were trying to branch out a bit too far from their more distinctive sound. There were some good songs (" how can you mend a broken heart" and "country woman") but there were some misses for me too("israel" and "its just the way"). Lyrically "the greatest man in the world" was really good but fell a bit short with the instrumentals.
Early Bee Gees before their disco era. It was ok but didn’t particularly move me.
Fine. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? is by far the best song here. 6/10
Wow, listening to Bee Gees songs that haven't been rammed into my ears a million times before is actually quite a pleasant experience! Fave track - "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" at the moment, but I should maybe listen a few more times as there are some other contenders.
Some soft, well written music. Not much otherwise to pique my interest.
Yeah yeah it’s boring and yeah the vocal spin is WILDly incongruous with the music but at least it’s pretty (but wow this is too long)
What a trippy album! There are parts of this that I really did. Some of it because it is faintly reminiscent of the Beatles. But oy, some of this was really awful. But mostly pretty chill. I would listen to this again.
this opened my eyes (ears?) to the face that the Bee Gees were more than just staying alive, saturday night fever and disco. It was interesting and I enjoyed it but I would probably not choose to go back to it. I give it two and a half john travoltas
Not what I expected. Don’t really know much of the Brothers Gibb, aside from the disco stuff, but enjoyed this melancholic effort. A bit McCartney-esque in places.
I’m enjoying this album more than I thought I would, which is a good thing. I’m really only familiar w/ The Bee Gees disco material (which I love), so it is cool to see this side of them. Strong melodies, good choruses, varied instrumentation. A solid 3
Trafalgar has it's fair share of passable tracks, and my rating will reflect that, but there are some great songwriting and arrangements here. Somebody Stop the Music is a little more experimental, Walking Back to Waterloo is a great album closer with great arrangements and Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself has that overly-dramatic tension that the Bee Gees are so well known for. Fav Tracks: Somebody Stop The Music, Walking Back To Waterloo and Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself
Sombre, but reasonable folk/pop. Wouldn't listen to again as a whole album so 2.8 out 5 rounded up.
Interesting album. There are signs of a transition by the Bee Gees on this album in production as well as lyrically and vocally. What I probably like the least is that all of the songs are ballads. There are some great songs on this album but equally there are some not so good songs (Dearest). The harmonies are spot on and they stretch their vocals in some cases. Overall I would say I like the albumbecause of the steps taken to stretch a bit. It's not Odessa or Main Course but pretty good. Favorite songs: How Can you Mend a Broken Heart, Somebody Stop the Music, walking Back to Waterloo.
Although it lacks any stand-out tracks, this is a solid pre-disco Bee Gees album. 7.7/10
yeah alright, I saved one song, different from the single other song I associate with the bee gees, definitely a solid 3, could sneak into 4 territory
A non funky/disco bee gees album full of ballads. A few are ok and the first song is pretty good. However a whole album of ballads just gets old. 5.9/10
Pretty fascinating. Though nothing matches "how can you men", the rest of the album is pretty solid. It has moments that evoke the beatles/john lennon and even david bowie. The music is albeit a little mellow/slow, though it still holds up today. If they had something else that was catchy on it, it would be a 4, but comes just a bit short in my book.
Curiosa l'elecció per formar part de la llista dels 1001. Disc obscur, pessimista, trist, ni tan sols especialment inspirat. Destaca el single 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart', que va ser un gran hit a USA, potser d'aquí la pressència de l'àlbum a la llista. Diferent a tot el que van fer i a tot el que havia de venir
I do really like the bee gees, but I've only listened to best ofs/singles collections, which gives a great variety. As a whole album this wears a little thin, as the songs are all slower ones from this one era, but its still fairly enjoyable
bee gees'in en kotu albumu bile simdiye kadar dinlediklerimizden daha guzel
Apparently I didn't know anything about the Bee Gees except for the most pop cult disco stuff. I found this album very odd. Not really my cuppa but I didn't despise it or anythong.
This album surprised me, as I had only heard stayin alive before. Overall a solid listen but nothing really grabbed my attention.