I'm taking this week off work as a much needed stress break and I'm finally catching up on some programs I've wanted to watch for a while, including the Bee Gees' HBO documentary, How Do You Mend a Broken Heart.
Let me preface by saying that I consider myself a casual-ish Bee Gees fan. Their 60s/early 70s work consists of some of the best pop songs ever, in my opinion -- I've always wanted to perform "To Love Somebody" or "Run To Me" at a wedding gig (if only I had the vocal or guitar-chord-melody chops to pull it off) -- and even their disco stuff is pretty darn good as far as disco goes.
This was a very well done documentary. It's clear what a gift the Gibbs had with their singing, arranging, songwriting, and production skillz and what's also clear is the love and respect they have/had for each other (even if it wasn't always apparent at the time, per se). Their humour is also very well appreciated. I would have liked to have seen a little coverage of the Sgt. Peppers film debacle (especially since that was my second exposure to the band as a Beatles-obsessed kid, thanks to a TV showing that heavily advertised it as a Beatles movie), but I've seen that well covered elsewhere. The documentary did a good job of covering the backlash they suffered with the "Disco Sucks" movement. It was interesting to hear the perspective of an African-American musician (who was also one of the ushers at Comiskey Park during the "Disco Sucks" event) on the popularity of the Bee Gees and/with disco music.
Spoiler alert (as if any of the above wasn't), but I wasn't expecting to feel as sad during the last 10-15 minutes of the documentary. Needless to say, it covers the passing of brothers Andy, Maurice, and Robin. The pace was a bit relentlessly sad but maybe it was to give us a sense of how Barry feels about it all looking back now. I think I was gutted when Barry said something to the effect of, "I would rather have them [Robin, Maurice, and Andy] with me here now and not have had the hits." (I'm sure I've butchered it, but the sentiment was similar.) Then they ended the doc with a live version of "Run To Me", which was the first Bee Gees song I ever heard on a various artists mixtape of my mother's when I was a child. I was still teary about it all when I took the dog for a walk afterwards, which I wasn't expecting.
Highly recommended. If you need to reach me, I'll be spinning some Bee Gees tunes in my corner for the rest of the night.
Let me preface by saying that I consider myself a casual-ish Bee Gees fan. Their 60s/early 70s work consists of some of the best pop songs ever, in my opinion -- I've always wanted to perform "To Love Somebody" or "Run To Me" at a wedding gig (if only I had the vocal or guitar-chord-melody chops to pull it off) -- and even their disco stuff is pretty darn good as far as disco goes.
This was a very well done documentary. It's clear what a gift the Gibbs had with their singing, arranging, songwriting, and production skillz and what's also clear is the love and respect they have/had for each other (even if it wasn't always apparent at the time, per se). Their humour is also very well appreciated. I would have liked to have seen a little coverage of the Sgt. Peppers film debacle (especially since that was my second exposure to the band as a Beatles-obsessed kid, thanks to a TV showing that heavily advertised it as a Beatles movie), but I've seen that well covered elsewhere. The documentary did a good job of covering the backlash they suffered with the "Disco Sucks" movement. It was interesting to hear the perspective of an African-American musician (who was also one of the ushers at Comiskey Park during the "Disco Sucks" event) on the popularity of the Bee Gees and/with disco music.
Spoiler alert (as if any of the above wasn't), but I wasn't expecting to feel as sad during the last 10-15 minutes of the documentary. Needless to say, it covers the passing of brothers Andy, Maurice, and Robin. The pace was a bit relentlessly sad but maybe it was to give us a sense of how Barry feels about it all looking back now. I think I was gutted when Barry said something to the effect of, "I would rather have them [Robin, Maurice, and Andy] with me here now and not have had the hits." (I'm sure I've butchered it, but the sentiment was similar.) Then they ended the doc with a live version of "Run To Me", which was the first Bee Gees song I ever heard on a various artists mixtape of my mother's when I was a child. I was still teary about it all when I took the dog for a walk afterwards, which I wasn't expecting.
Highly recommended. If you need to reach me, I'll be spinning some Bee Gees tunes in my corner for the rest of the night.
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