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.
Was expecting “Staying Alive” and had to settle for my best effort at Staying Awake. I didn’t get this at all. 1.5
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Bee Gees are great! This is much more folksy than the disco hits I've heard, but still really nice.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
I mean...it was okay. I liked it better than the Doors, but I wouldn't go out of my way to listen again. Nice ballads, just a little too much cheese for me. Fave track: More than a Woman. A classic.
For many years before the Bee Gees hit it big with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and became huge disco stars, the Bee Gees had a full career already in the 60's and early 70's. I admit I own a couple pre-SNF albums and they're pretty good. Keep the image of the Gibbs in tight pants out of your mind when you listen to Trafalgar and you'll be fine. The album has it's moments, but some of the songs are rather dull. All and all, a decent album which is typical for their "early works".
A rather intriguing album from Queensland-via-Isle of Man's finest, just a few years before their disco heyday. The Brothers Gibb's songwriting chops are in full effect and they give plenty of good to great songs that brim with excellence. Favorites: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, Israel, The Greatest Man in the World, It's Just the Way, Somebody Stop the Music, Trafalgar, Lion in Winter.
Surprising to see this album on the list. Can only imagine it would be on the list if it came out at the end of nineties or later (as there is a clear split in the 1001 list between absolute iconic albums and a mixture of solid / bomb albums right about that time when the list is starting to ignore the truly outstanding albums from say the last 20-25 years). In any case, this album is from one of the least interesting Bee Gees periods (expected to see Odessa, guess it is on the list too) where they made 1-2 stand-out singles per album and filled them up with competent stuff. Same goes for this album. How Can You Mend A Broken Heart has become an Al Green classic - it is of a different level than the rest ...which is pleasant but apart from sounding a bit too proggy they sound like other artists on this album (think Beatles especially in It's Just The Way). So one >=5 star song, a couple of 4 star songs (like the 2nd single or the album closer) and number of **/*** songs.
Genre: Pop 3/5 Well, it's certainly not chock full of disco singles or pulsating late-70s backbeats, but it's the Bee Gees. Trafalgar finds the Bee Gees at a transition in their storied career. Not quite the 60s psych pop they were indulging in prior, and not quite the disco pop niche they'd fit in so delightfully later in the decade. This album is a soft rock experiment, eschewing rock backdrops for lush strings and expensive production, and it's fairly meh. The album swings from your average pop venture, like the intro, and lead single, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, to near prog-pop with the title track, Trafalgar, to 40s-style standards with Lion in Winter. It's all played fairly straight, nothing experimental here, and unfortunately doesn't showcase the Gibb's sweeping harmonies they'd become more known for later in their tenure. But, truly inoffensive, although none too interesting.
Cet album a le mérite de nous donner une idée de ce que faisaient les Bee Gees avant de tortiller du cul et de ne chanter qu'en ultra-sons.
There are some lovely songs. But it's filled with slow moving love songs that I can't do in huge batches.
Ej pa ovo je sasvim okej album. Vjerujem da su ovaki bili prije nego što su se diskotirali.
Not my favorite album of all time. I knew BeeGees were a different sounding band before disco, but they are so much more interesting in the disco era now. Nothing here appealed to me at all. 2.5/5.
Orchestral-but-not-quite-champer-pop (and suffers for it, at least in my chamber-anything-loving brain). The band's talent for hooks is on full display if you listen closely, but they're mired in schmaltz and gestures at gospel. That makes it sound like a worse record than it is: There are moments of interest, but they are too spaced out. More than anything, this is a puzzling project to look at as essential.
Pakko tunnustaa oma tietämättömyyteni bändistä, koska odotin kovaa disco jytää. Petyin....
Good representation of Bee Gees songs, I liked hearing some stuff other than Stayin' Alive! Musical production and composition was impressive, although a lot of the songs just seemed kinda lame... Highlights: -How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? -Walking Back to Waterloo
When you think of the BGs you think of disco pop. I don’t usually think of a Beatles imitation group. Had some good melody. Wasn’t bad. Just was basic Beatles style pop
No está mal, pero no creo que sea imprescindible. Me ha gustado bastante la última canción "Walking back to Waterloo" pero el resto muy monótono. Para ser ya su 9º disco no hay en mi opinión ningún super éxito. Lo mismo lo vuelvo a escuchar algún día pero poco más.
bit shmaltzy and some excrutiating vocals. And few hits. So basically not up there with their best. 2
I don't have a lot of context for pre-disco Bee Gees, so this helped me better understand their early work. That said, I found this album a little boring and safe, aside from a few standout tracks. Well-made, but lacking in urgency or unique artistic vision. Rating: 2.5/5 Favourite track: Trafalgar, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart
Very Burt Bacharach. Good in sections when it got gospelly but overall very dirgey and slow with organs and strings. Not 'cool' at all.
37. Os casados já só querem ser solteiros. Falta-lhes a energia de antes, e isso torna-os presas vencidas pelo cansaço, a correr atrás da bola. Quando o predador se farta, bam!, um estoiro para lá do meio campo, como mandam os costumes. José Maria, o da Laura, guarda a baliza. A bola parece oval, golpe de vista, curva-se sem qualquer reverência, golpe de estado. José Maria, o das pequenas Constança e Leonor, contorce-se no chão de dor. Os solteiros riem. É realmente muito engraçado. Escapou de boa. Uns centímetros mais à esquerda e seria um dos novos Bee Gees. MotA: Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself "I can think of younger days when living for my life was everything a man could want to do"
Oh god this is gonna be another album from before they went disco isn't it. 2/5 starting point because I think I was too kind to Odessa. And yep just Beatles-esque crap. All very sickly sweet, nameless early 70s soft rock. I'm expecting there to be a high concept track as well given the title. Otherwise... torn between a 2 and a 3 - 2 because I object to how much these bands are in this list, but 3 because you could really never call it bad. Its big crime is that it's mildly boring. The sheer monotony and blandness was killing me by about half way, and there wasn't even a standout track like Odessa. 2/5.
My knowledge of Bee Gees is limited pretty much to disco hits / Saturday Night Fever. Was interesting (but not especially enjoyable) to hear them sing pre-disco ballads.
I actually liked the last BeeGees album on here but this was kind of a chore. Sappy and repetitive.
Didn’t mind the first half of this - it’s as bit twee and self-important but a few decent enough folky numbers. The 2nd half is pretty forgettable.
To sum up my experience, it was more interesting to find out the Bee Gees had members other than the three Gibb brothers than to listen to the actual album. It's not a bad album, but it does get boring during the second half. I like a sad ballad here and there but not every single song, it makes the running time feel longer than it actually was. That being said I did appreciate the vocals and the harmonies in this. Weirdly I would say Maurice's songs were the most enjoyable. Barry and Robin were good too as well as the orchestral elements but it got tiresome by the end. In all honesty, if they put some up tempo songs in the mix of ballads, it would have been a good listen overall.
Tråkigt album! Förutsägbara, översmöriga ballader. Ingen låt med någon form av wow-faktor. Israel ära bra. Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself har något fint. Annars mest jobbiga låtar, som Remembering, When Do I, och Dearest. Bästa låt: Israel.
55 Trafalgar - Bee Gees 12 tracks. I quite like the Bee Gees, (or at least thought I did), but this was boring as hell. How on Earth it got on this list I will never know. I bet the Gibb Bros don't even think it's very good. 2/5
If the music on this album was a colour, it would be beige. Some epic sounding tracks in amongst a slew of ones that sound like they a lifted from an off off Broadway musical. This is the Bee Gees who are no longer the Aussie pop darlings and not yet the doyens of disco
Boy, I thought when I get a Bee Gees album that it was going to be a fun dancey romp, and I was 100% wrong. This is a dour album about endless sadness, and now I can't even remember what it feels like to dance. The music is pretty good, though, so if I still had the ability to experience joy, I would be happy about that GOD, THIS ALBUM JUST KEEPS GOING, DOESN'T IT? This is the same band that wrote Stayin Alive, right? Did they accidentally take a bunch of ecstasy before recording that album? You know what, I was going to give this album a 3, but they talked me into a 2 by being absolutely crucifying for the entire runtime of the album 2/5
Stiff and flat through most of the album with occasionally clanky arrangements and some awkward sounds or forced percussions. Highlights lion in winter, maybe trafalgar where vocals seemed more natural and composition more sharp.
I was excited for this but let down. Some cool harmonies but overall it kinda just droned on. Very mellow. Pre-disco era.
This album gets far agreeable ratings from some, but not a lot in it for me. I thought I may have matured into it a bit, but it wasn’t to be.
Not that I'm a huge Bee Gees fan, but I'm a bit taken aback by how bad this is. The vocals on some of these songs gave me flashbacks to Nico.
I know shit about mysic so you can disregard my opinion but with my completely untrained ear I couldnt help but feel like some of this singing is REALLY bad. Im more familiar with the high pitched tight pants Bee Gees but this felt like a satirical Beatles spoof. Am I missing something? Is there some elaborate joke I'm missing. They sound like frogs.
Quand même déçu. Je devrais le réécouter pour me faire une meilleure opinion, mais je trouvais ça monotone et peu original overall.
(Copertina meravigliosa) Speravo in qualcosa stile ABBA, si salva giusto 'How can you mend a broken heart'
Ok, I took a day off with this one. I listened to it almost twice. Very nice, if somehow in a baroque way, but I struggle to understand why this should be considered essential. Next?
Whole lot to mine here. Starting with, this is not the Bee Gees of disco, this is from a decade earlier. And not only that but it's their 9th album. So apparently I knew very little of the Bee Gees, which started as a child group and went from pop to folk to rock to disco and back. Then there's the fact that this album is 100% ballads. Some are good, some are very, very bad. Hot take: Robin Gibbs has the most bizarre, worst vocal approach I have ever heard. Maybe it's technically great, who knows, but to my ear it's laughably terrible on these songs. What a mixed bag overall, with a few highlights worth discovering, and a history now learned.
I kind of felt bored listening to this, but it's pleasant music at least. Favourites: "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart", "It's Just The Way", "Trafalgar"
Meh. Pre-disco Bee Gees are not my thing. Not unlistenable, but will probably not listen again.
Started brightly, sounded like a good Elton John album, but fell away pretty quickly into saccharine ballad territory. Not one for the ages, 2/5.
This might be the most boring album on the list. No wonder they pivoted to disco. Best track: Somebody Stop the Music
Oh god i barely got through the first 30 seconds of this. His nasal voice, just appalling.
I had some slight interest in this being the Bee Gees pre falsetto and disco. That faded after 4 tracks, I couldn't stand any more
One of the worst albums I have ever listened to. I have never respected the bee gees and this lowered my opinion.
This is a bit of a chore to listen to. I find the songs very bland; they do not work for me.
It’s literally the same song repeated twelve times! And that song is an absolute dirge. My wife left me! Here are some strings! Tedious beyond belief. How did this get made? I think it might be one of the worst albums I have ever heard.
Best Song: Trafalgar. Nice harmonies. Worst Song: The Greatest Man In The World. Sappy, weepy, corny, with way too much vocal vibrato. Overall: Why did I think the Bee Gees were fun? This was melodramatic, overly serious, and self-important. Should feature as Figure 1 in the textbook on over-singing.
These guys had to have sold their souls to the Devil. There's no other explanation for their fame. This whole album sounds like Katheryn Hepburn singing while driving a truck down a washboard road. This is god awful. Lion in the winter? WTF? Ever wonder what Rod Stewart will sound like when he's dying? Listen to Lion in the Winter. I award you no stars and may god have mercy on our souls.
This is the most annoyingly mediocre piece of forgettable try-hard rubbish I have heard in a long time. Other than having their first US #1 single (How can you mend a broken heart?) for a group that LATER became massive and influential (with a wildly different sound), this does NOTHING to justify its inclusion on a list of must-hear albums. This just makes me question the clear thinking of the list compiler. 47 minutes of my lie that I will never get back. (At least it wasn't the 53 minute version. Thank the lord for small mercies). I am really struggling to get through this. It sounds like everyone involved in the recording was loaded to the gills on valium, mandrax, qualudes or similar. I think it would be a better listening experience if I was similarly sedated.
Abysmal. Overwrought, self indulgent, over long, nails on a scratch board performance - worst album I heard so far. And the writing l? Ooof. When will I get the fun BeeGees? This is terrible.
Je sais que la première pièce est un gros hit, mais personnellement je ne suis pas capable. Israel par contre avec son côté plus Elton John est beaucoup plus agréable. It's Just the Way et Walking Back To Waterloo sont vraiment les plus intéressantes selon mes goûts. J'ai l'impression d'avoir entendu la mélodie de Walking samplé sur quelque chose d'autre. Remembering et When Do I sont vraiment mauvaises. Trafalgar a un côté Beatles dans ses harmonies. Effectivement, la guitare dans Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself fait très While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Il y a aussi un petit côté Let It Be. Dearest ne cadre tellement avec le reste de l'album qu'on peut se demander ce qu'elle fait là. Mon écoute est faite et je ne reviendrai pas à cet album.
eehhhhhh... Y s’passe rien, c’est de l’harmonie de vieux country qui tourne en rond. Tout est mou et sans corp. Très, très ennuyeux.
Criss c'est plate!!! La voix sur remembering sonne comme un mélange de ringo star et roy orbisson si on garde les mauvais côté des deux... On dirait qu'ils essaient d'être les Beatles avec les strings et les arrangements pis toute mais sans le talent . C'est faux par bout et pas juste un peu (même le piano, faut le faire). Interminable. Traflagar est très Beatlesque aussi mais plus type tv afterschool special qui n'ont pas eu les droits alors ils pastichent pochement... When do I est risible, on dirait une parodie, la voix se peut juste pas! Lion in winter ils ont gardés le test de son du bass drum ou quoi??? La bass commence sa passe trop tôt et recommence🙄 insupportable !!!! Qu'est-ce que ça fout sur cette liste ce disque ?? Même celui qui commente IN THE ACTUAL BOOK a pas l'air d'aimer le disque🤔
While the first song or two were very nice, it soon descended into schmaltzy, Eurovision-y boringness for me.