The Bee Gees
Odessa

THE REVIEW

Ambitious, unmistakable, overflowing: not content with the excellent artistic outcome of "Idea," in 1969 the Bee Gees go further with "Odessa"; there is a desire for grandeur in the Gibb house: red velvet cover with golden letters, later abandoned due to the high processing costs for this powerful double LP, perhaps a response to the Beatles' "White Album". The double album is a rather risky choice: fillers and excessive verbosity are always lurking, as Elton John knows with his "Blue Moves" and even with the much-acclaimed "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," but this is not the case: although characterized by slightly more homogeneous sounds compared to "Idea," "Odessa" easily withstands all of its 64 minutes duration, which flows by in a fantastic string of great songs, brilliant ideas, melodies that delight the auditory nerve, and many different moods and atmospheres united by a common thread, obviously of fine red velvet.

Before "Odessa," a Bee Gees song rarely exceeded three minutes in duration, now the over seven minutes of the title track look towards typically prog scenarios: echoing choruses, almost distant and arcane, subtle orchestrations, moments of serene melody that ease an almost surreal atmosphere, then the unease and the tempo changes return to dictate laws; an obsessive background cello, acoustic guitars that sketch changing and moody melodies, then again those reverberated vocal lines, talking of shipwrecks and ghost ships: clearly, this album is not a bluff, but the surprises don't end here, indeed, the best is yet to come: the instrumental "Seven Seas Symphony", with orchestrations, choruses, and mellotron in the foreground, is a wonderful four-minute symphonic spleen, imbued with suggestion and melancholy, "Edison," a quirky homage to the inventor of the light bulb, makes the hypnotic and sing-song repetition of the refrain its winning weapon; "Suddenly," "Whisper Whisper" and "I Laugh In Your Face", even if simpler and more canonical, all have a peculiar aftertaste, "eerie" as the English would say: captivating melodies with a hint of obsessiveness and madness; never before had they offered similar sounds, and in the subsequent records, these will be sporadic and isolated episodes.

"Marley Purt Drive" and "Give Your Best" present a distinctly country style, even bluegrass for the latter, also unprecedented for the Bee Gees, and are two of the album's most enjoyable and bright episodes; ballads like the playful and carefree "Melody Fair", the intense "Black Diamond", and the heartfelt "Sound Of Love" and "You'll Never See My Face Again" represent an evolution of what had already been shown in the two albums of 1968, and finally, there are the two apples of discord: the Christmas-themed "First Of May", sung by Barry, and "Lamplight", the album's masterpiece ballad, imbued with heartfelt and passionate folk sounds, Robin's flagship: the dispute over which of the two songs should be the launch single was won by Barry, despite the stylistic superiority of "Lamplight", and Robin will leave the group: the division will last only a year, yet it is enough to write the final word on the band's most golden period, of which "Odessa" represents the ideal crowning.