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11/17/01 
11/16/2001 LINER NOTES
The Bee Gees ability to change with the times is remarkable. In the sixties, they were classy harmonising popsters with a penchant for a big tuneful ballad; during the seventies they completely re-invented themselves with contemporary dance grooves, funky synths and falsetto vocals. In the wake of Saturday Night Fever, the biggest selling soundtrack album of all time, the brothers turned their attention to writing forother artists including the Woman In Love album for Barbra Streisand (US and UK No1), Islands In The Stream for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton (US No1), Chain Reaction for Diana Ross (UK No1) and Dionne Warwicks comeback smash Heartbreaker. Barry Gibb produced these records with his team earning him the rating as All-Time No3 Record Producer with the most No1 Records (14) to his credit.
Since the 1967 release of their first international hit, New York Mining Disaster, Bee Gees songs have topped the charts in five successive decades. They are the only group to have placed five singles simultaneously in the US Top 10, and to have monopolised the US charts with six consecutive No1s. Seven Grammies, a BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution To Music and 10 Lifetime Achievement Awards have contributed to earning the band honoured places in both the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame and the Songwriters Hall Of Fame.
Understandably, many top artists reserve the utmost respect for the Brothers Gibb but the way in which their songs have transcended generations is virtually unique. Megastars as diverse as Bono of U2, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Noel Gallagher of Oasis, and Destinys Child, have expressed their admiration for the trio of Man-cunian tearaways who grew up to dominate the worlds music charts. Delivering another No1, You Win Again, under their own name in the eighties, the Bee Gees proved they could still keep pace with the latest sounds, and in the 90s and the new millennium their flag was hoist aloft by a raft of younger acts who realised that truly great songs never die. N-Trance took Stayin Alive to No1 in Canada, Pras Michel morphed Islands In The Stream into Ghetto Supastar (US No1), Take That ended their career with UK No1 version of How Deep Is Your Love, Boyzone covered Words (UK No1) and Steps covered Tragedy (UK No1) and Chain Reaction. In 2001 Destinys Child released Emotion, 24 years after Samantha Sang made it a worldwide No1. In all, more than 500 cover versions of Gibb songs have been recorded by other artists.
Impressive as all of this is, the Bee Gees music is about much more than sales and awards. This group has provided the soundtrack to countless thousands of lives by writing the songs which bring lovers together, console the heartbroken, lift happy spirits even higher and cause young and old alike to get out on the floor, strut that stuff and forget, for a few precious moments, whatever cares might be troubling them.
Courtesy of Bee Gees Online 10/27/2001 Wednesday October 10, 2001
Bee Gees cover themselves on new hits CD
By JAM! Music
The musical legacy of The Bee Gees will be celebrated with a new career-spanning double-disc collection, featuring four newly recorded tracks.
Universal Music announced that "Bee Gees: Their Greatest Hits: The Record" will arrive in stores Nov. 20, with four newly recorded versions of songs the group wrote for other artists: "Emotion" (Samantha Sang), "Heartbreaker" (Dionne Warwick), "Islands In The Stream" (Kenny Rogers with Dolly Parton), and "Immortality" (Celine Dion).
The 40-track collection will also include all of their singles, dating from the 1960s through to the '90s, plus a 16-page booklet documenting their career.
Here's the track-listing for the set:
"BEE GEES THEIR GREATEST HITS: THE RECORD"
Disc 1:
1. New York Mining Disaster
2. To Love Somebody
3. Holiday
4. Massachusetts
5. World
6. Words
7. I've Gotta Get A Message To You
8. I Started A Joke
9. First Of May
10. Saved By The Bell
11. Don't Forget To Remember
12. Lonely Days
13. How Can You Mend A Broken Heart
14. Run To Me
15. Jive Talkin'
16. Nights On Broadway
17. Fanny Be Tender
18. Love So Right
19. If I Can't Have You
20. Love Me
21. You Should Be Dancin'
Disc 2:
1. Stayin' Alive
2. How Deep Is Your Love
3. Night Fever
4. More Than A Woman
5. Emotions
6. Too Much Heaven
7. Tragedy
8. Love You Inside Out
9. Guilty
10. Heartbreaker
11. Islands In The Stream
12. You Win Again
13. One
14. Secret Love
15. For Whom The Bells Tolls
16. Alone
17. Immortality
18. This Is Where I Came In
19. Spicks and Specks
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10/21/2001 Bee Gees off round world with their greatest hits
By Paul Majendie
LONDON (Reuters) - The Bee Gees are collecting up their greatest hits and heading off around the world hoping to give a golden sunset to their platinum careers.
With more than 110 million records sold, the brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb rank with The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson as one of pop's longest-running success stories.
Now the Bee Gees are combining all their greatest hits on a double album being released worldwide on November 20. Then they embark next January on a 100-show tour around the globe.
"We are very ambitious for it worldwide," said Lucian Grainge, chairman and chief executive officer of Universal Music UK, revealing exclusively to Reuters release details of the album that looks set to be an international number one.
The economic downturn and the September hijack attacks in the U.S. have pounded already weak sales in a music industry grappling with rampant CD piracy. But Grainge refused to be downcast.
"Our market has been very buoyant and we have had a solid and gratifying year," he said. "I anticipate we will have a very good Christmas."
The Bee Gees' album provides a golden marketing opportunity and Grainge, true to industry hype, pledged: "We will hit the ball with every single inch of the wood we have got."
The world tour should also work wonders with sales.
The Bee Gees have gone in and out of fashion over the last four decades, mocked as much for Barry's falsetto voice as they were for their disco look, big hair and gleaming white teeth.
But they and their songs have survived the test of time, as frequent cover versions of their tunes on the U.K. pop charts attest.
"Saturday Night Fever" is the best-selling movie soundtrack ever. They have garnered seven Grammy Awards and 10 lifetime achievement Awards around the world. They had their first number one in 1966 and over 60 hit singles since then.
Grainge wouldn't talk figures but he is convinced that the Bee Gees album will now run and run in the charts: "There is hardly a consumer anywhere who has not listened to, bought or danced to a Bee Gees song."
Reuters/Variety
(Thanks to Godiva) 09/20/2001
The new Greatest Hits CD of The Bee Gees is a 2 CD set with 40 songs and will probably be called: THE RECORD however this is not confirmed as yet. Universal are treating this as their major release from their forthcoming releases until Christmas and planning to promote and advertise this CD Box like was done before with The Beatles' album '1'. The Bee Gees are planning an 85 day stadium tour to promote this new album starting around Spring 2002. So it looks like there'll be lots of Bee Gees activities in the next few months and all Bee Gees fans will know what to ask for Christmas!!
Courtesy of Gibb Service International 09/20/01 (also thanks to Riza Yehiya)
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