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Dec 09, 2010 Web Exclusive By Kenny S. McGuane

Gosh, people were hostile toward disco. Some still are. While I’ve never been especially fond of it, I’ve also never especially disliked it and I’ve never gone out of my way to disparage the entire genre based on some ridiculous set of rock purist principles. For me, the further we get away from disco the better that music starts to sound. Distance also makes it easier to fully appreciate the impact disco had on American culture—in many ways it liberated the gay community and pushed their struggle to the forefront of our collective social conscience while simultaneously inspiring the intermingling of blacks and whites. Disco, as it turns out, served as a unifying medium. Suddenly the dance-floor was shared by heterosexuals and homosexuals of all different skin colors.

It’s impossible to imagine disco without Bee Gees and likewise it’s impossible to overstate their genius. They’ve written some of the most memorable and irresistible songs in the history of pop music and now Reprise has released a four-disc box set honoring the brothers Gibb. Barry, Maurice, Robin, and Andy each have a disc dedicated to them in Mythology, which features 81 tracks and an extensive booklet compiling 50 years of photographic and musical memories. Mythology is indeed exhaustive but it comes at a price: $54.98 retail for the CDs and $39.99 for the digital release. Bee Gees have already had the bulk of their catalog remastered, repackaged and reissued and so in some ways this collection is redundant but it would be ideal for someone starting from scratch, in that case 55 bucks would get you just about every Bee Gees song you’d ever need.

Bee Gees were musical chameleons and Mythology highlights just how varied and dynamic they were. It covers everything from the perpetually popular disco anthems “Stayin’ Alive” and “Night Fever” to the lesser known but impressive early singles such as “Holiday,” “Odessa,” and “Spicks and Specks,” which are as good as any other psychedelic folk-pop songs of the same era. Mythology is gratuitous, pricey too, but Bee Gees have earned the right to such a commemoration and this set covers all the ground a 50th anniversary collection should. (www.beegees.com)

Author rating: 7/10