Customer Reviews

The Best of Andy Gibb: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Polydor released "Andy Gibb" (greatest) in 1991 with one new song, "Man On Fire" (a polished demo). This new collection does not include this song, nor "Flowing Rivers". However, the duet with Pat Arnold (back-up singer from the Bee Gees "Cucumber Castle" CD), "Will You Still Love Me", also from Gibb's "Greatest LP" is included. It's a nice refreshing duet. One low charting single is also not released; the infamous duet "All I Have To Do" with Victoria Principal. Note that she is not a singer and allegedly helped Andy Gibb's downhill spiral. It's not a surprise this is excluded (besides being just God-awful). But all the #1 and Top Ten hits are here, plus other Top 40 wonders. A great collection!

Andy Gibb had to have been one of the best singers of the '70s. He sang the songs so very good and this collection really covers his best material. The hits like Shadow Dancing I love and Everlasting Love, Desire, and Our Love are still superb, but the other songs are nice, some I got to hear for the first time last year. After Dark is smooth and Time Is Time has that Def Leppard-meets-AC/DC heavy metal element to it. Those two duets he did with Olivia Newton-John and another female singer are fabulous. It was sad that he passed away in 1988, for he could have given us so much more. For his brothers the Bee Gees to guide his career and produce his songs and albums is an true showing of support for their flesh and blood. A well assembled and dynamic album and tribute to him!

It's hard to believe it's been 17 years since he died at a very young age of 30! He was a talented musician, obviously being related to the Bee Gees! Andy had many memorable songs and those songs are all here! "Shadow Dancing" and "Love Is Thicker Than Water" are his best along with "After Dark". This album contains liner notes along with nice pictures. A must for music fans of the late 1970s!

I discovered Andy Gibb when I started filling in gaps in my Bee Gees Collection. I vaguely remember hearing some great style Bee Gees Songs on the radio, but couldnt see them in any of their album collections - until I discovered Andy Gibb and then the pieces fell into place.It was great to hear songs like "Shadow Dancing" and "Everlasting Love" that I grew up with for a second time and they were like new. Its sad a lot of people have never heard of Andy Gibb. In my opinion I think he was perhaps the greatest of the Gibb brothers at that time with his own similar but uniquely different style blending soft rock and disco. To anyone learning about Andy Gibb for the first time, let me clear up some confusion. Andy Gibb was never one of the Bee Gees, he was a solo artist in his own right. He was the youngest of his brothers and his greatest notoreity was for a couple of years in 1978/79. His older brother Barry with whom he shared an uncanny resemblence often produced much of Andy's work and can often be heard in the backing vocals of Andys songs. I remember seeing a program on the Bees Gees with one of them saying that the door was always open for Andy if ever he wanted to join his brothers. Truly an outstanding singer and performer in his own right, his life tragically cut short by an untimely death. Always complementing the outstanding success of his other brothers, never eclipsing them, one cannot help but reflect on what might have been. Following the introduction to this album I went on to get the rest of his 4 albums. Worth listening to as a taster of what the other albums consist of - enjoy!

Yes, this CD has the original, full-length version of "Time Is Time," which I agree is one of Gibb's better songs. Despite the change in title, this is actually the CD version of "Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits," an LP that was released in 1981 or thereabouts. It also includes the non-hits "Me (Without You)" and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," the latter cut probably the best duet Gibb ever performed. (I found his songs with Olivia Newton-John to be among his worst vocal performances; his voice was embarrassingly softer than hers -- no mean feat, that.)

Unfortunately, this CD does not include "All I Have to Do Is Dream," Gibb's duet with Victoria Principal, or "Man on Fire," which appeared on Gibb's previous greatest-hits package, so it's hardly inclusive. I guess those songs, and others no doubt hidden in a vault somewhere, will turn up in time for the inevitable boxed set.

Although the youngest Gibb emerged in the disco era, he was always more of a pop singer than a disco artist. This collection includes all of his hits with the exception of All I Have To Do Is Dream, the duet with Dallas star Victoria Principal.

Shadow Dancing of course remains a stunning dancefloor anthem, whilst I Just Want To Be Your Everything, Love Is Thicker Than Water and Everlasting are classy and catchy pop songs. Me (Without You) and the duet with Pat Arnold, Will You Love Me Tomorrow, are great love ballads.

But my favourite is Time Is Time, a brilliant, intense number that is somewhere between pop and rock, with a killer hook and serious lyrics. I consider this great song as the perfect example of the greatness Andy could have achieved had he lived.

There are other Andy Gibb compilations but this one is as good as any, with the one omission mentioned above. Andy's contribution pales in comparison with that of his brothers, but he was very special and left us some timeless songs.

There's not much I can add about this CD that hasn't already been covered by the other reviewers. Basically, it's the only Andy Gibb album in print now, and it has all but one of his charted hits ("All I Have To Do Is Dream" with Victoria Principal, which as far as I know has NEVER been on CD). If you're just a casual Andy Gibb fan, this album will definitely serve you well. However, if you want more from Andy than a hits compilation, you are in a bit of a quandary. Andy's 3 original albums, "Flowing Rivers", "Shadow Dancing" and "After Dark" were released on CD in 1998, but are all now out of print and go for upwards of $30 and $40 (or more) as used CD's. Therefore, I would like to make a suggestion to the folks at Universal Music: How about having Andy Gibb in your 2CD "Gold" series of compilations? His first two albums could fit onto Disc One (I checked it - it would run somewhere around 79 minutes and 40 seconds). Disc Two could consist of the "After Dark" album plus "Time Is Time", "Me (Without You)", "All I Have To Do Is Dream", "Man On Fire", and maybe (hopefully) some previously unreleased material by Andy that might be sitting around in the vaults at Universal. (Even a rarity like the single edit of "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" would be good as a bonus track). In that case, his regular albums would be back in print and fans of Andy would be able to enjoy more of his music beyond the hits. Another suggestion might be to have Andy in your "Definitive Collection" line of CD's. Since that is a single disc series, all 10 of Andy's "Hot 100" chart hits could be on there as well as selected album cuts. These are all just suggestions, but hopefully they'll be taken into consideration. Andy is often overlooked (not surprisingly) because of his being the younger brother of the Bee Gees, and it's time that he's given his due. A "Gold" or "Definitive Collection" would be a great place to start.

Polydor takes out 2 tracks from the 1991 Greatest Hits album("Flowing Rivers and "Man On Fire") and adds a non-charting version of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" with Pat Arnold from his first (vinyl only) Greatest Hits album in 1980. Outside of that,the only difference between the 2 Hits CD's are that this one has some liner notes. Die-hard fans may want the duet with Arnold for their CD collection, (and wonder where his duet with Victoria Principal-"All I Have To Do Is Dream" #51 in 1981 is), but this is for new fans only.

This album should have included his other popular songs like "Words and Music", "Rest Your Love on Me", "One More Look at the Night", "Man of Fire", and "Why"? So why were those not included? It's not that there was no more space on the CD. I don't see why they would have to skimp on songs when they want to sell a COLLECTION so to speak. I have a big feeling they will come out with a little more comprehensive collection of his songs later. Perhaps it will be called 'The DEFINITIVE Collection'. So if you can wait, skip this one then.

As the other reviewers have pointed out, this collection is very similar to the 1991 Andy Gibb anthology. However, there are a few key differences. All of the songs on the Millenium Collection have been newly remastered and sound slightly better than those on the earlier collection, so audiophiles should go with the new compilation. Completists will also need to purchase the Millenium Collection just to have "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" on CD.

Unfortunately, I can only give a qualified recommendation to the Millenium Collection due to Polydor/Universal's boneheaded decision to leave the classic "Flowing Rivers" off of the album. "Flowing Rivers" is one of Andy's best songs and is conspicuous in it's absence from the new anthology. Thus, the casual would be best served by opting for the 1991 compilation for the best selection of songs, all in perfectly acceptable sound quality.